


In Need of Someone with the Right Temperament

by emeraldine087



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Birthdate, Bisexuality, Captain America: Civil War teaser, Catharsis, Charity Auctions, Cruise Ships, Estrangement, Eventual Happy Ending, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Feels and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Fundraisers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pepperony Break-up, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Captain America: Civil War, Romance, Steve Rogers Feels, Stony - Freeform, Teaser elements, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, plot gets heavy later on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:31:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 96,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5726458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldine087/pseuds/emeraldine087
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is looking for Dr. Bruce Banner. Steve Rogers is waiting for news about Bucky Barnes. They both find themselves aboard a cruise ship towards an island getaway for a charity/awareness event. A break-up over the phone, a stalker on the loose, romps on the beach, a luau, an orchestra concert, an auction for fund-raising, a day-long "date" and one revelation after another bring the two superheroes together.</p><p>But all <i>does not</i> end well when Bucky is found, The Accords are signed, and the states unanimously call for The Winter Soldier's arrest. Iron Man and Captain America find themselves at cross purposes as if their time on the island had never happened. Friends turn against friends as Tony fights to make amends for Ultron and Sokovia; Steve fights for the independence of The Avengers from any form of government control and to have his best friend back.</p><p>But <i>something</i> had happened on that island. Something undeniable. And powerful. That though on opposing sides, Steve and Tony are drawn to each other. </p><p>Will they give in or will they keep resisting? Will they ever find their way back from war to their little slice of paradise?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sparkle of Valor

**Author's Note:**

> After almost a year since I first posted the first chapter of www.stem.org and here we are again, emeraldine087 checking back in!!! I'm sorry I'm not as prolific as the other fanfic writers, and I can be as lazy as all-fuck. But I am happy to announce the birth of this story--my new baby. It has consumed me for the past three weeks now that even at work, I find myself wanting to write a couple of paragraphs.
> 
> So, I hope you bear with this as you bore with the last one (with grace, anticipation and cake...). I intend to update every Saturday or every other Saturday, if I get to write enough material. 
> 
> Just a couple more notes: Pre-CA:CW. I am hoping to finish before the movie is released here in my country in the latter part of April 2016. It will feature some Civil War elements as I've gleaned from the trailer, interviews and discussions about the possible plot of the movie. And no, there won't be any Stucky because I am a Stony shipper to the core!!! Picks up several months after AoU; no Thor and (possibly) no Brucie-bear either, unless I trip over something and realize that, no, the story badly needs Bruce in it... Oh and, as usual, RDJ is a veritable god and this story will pound that into you...
> 
> Same drill everyone--comments and Kudos PLEASE. Let me know of any (any at all) issues. Aaaaaaannnndddd.... Don't forget to enjoy!

“Which quadrant are we at now, FRIDAY?” Tony Stark asked, listlessly, sipping from a coffee mug the size of a small bucket.

His workshop was in its usual disarray that it was difficult to see how much it had improved from the warzone that it used to be after Ultron’s preliminary bitch-fit. But it actually had: new and cutting edge holo-panels; armored steel trusses and overhead beams; reinforced, bulletproof, floor-to-ceiling blackout smart glass; blinking banks upon banks of data storage facilities in self-cooling titanium enclosures; some 8,500 micro-sensors all over the place that were so bad-ass, they could detect from your blinking and breathing patterns if a sneeze was coming 2.8 seconds before the actual event; and robotic smart arms that pop out of the stainless ceiling panels that would be ready with tissues and hand sanitizer 2.8 seconds after such respiratory occurrence.

 _“We are in Quadrant 4, Sir, currently sweeping Sector 7 at latitude 5-10° South and longitude 120-125° East, 1,423 kilometers southeast of Kuala Lumpur,”_ FRIDAY intoned with her amusement-infused Irish brogue. _“Still no sign of any quinjet wreckage, data trail or physical trace whatsoever of Dr. Banner, Sir.”_

“I was afraid you’d say that,” said Tony with a miffed grunt, crossing his legs at the ankles, his arms across his chest and leaning back against his swivel chair. “Where the bloody fuck are you, Bruce?” He whispered to himself while roaming his eyes on the projected image of a segment of the Banda Sea that his high-powered satellites were scouring.

Ever since the disappearance of Dr. Bruce Banner, astrophysicist-biologist-chemist-scientist extraordinaire, Tony had been determinedly but sporadically probing the last known location of one of his stealth quinjets that Bruce had apparently taken in the wake of the final showdown with Ultron as his response, if it could be called that, to the safety and security hazard that he considered himself to be. Especially after the chaos that was the Wakandan city that the Hulk thrashed during one of their many, many encounters with Ultron and his erstwhile minions, the Maximoff twins.

Now, Ultron was duly dispatched. Pietro was dead. Wanda was a New Avenger. And Bruce Banner was, like smoke, just… gone from the face of the globe.

And Tony Stark has this Hulk-sized hole where his arc reactor used to be because, as bad-ass as he always made himself out to be with the lone gunslinger act and shit, he couldn’t deny that Bruce was a dear friend and his loss was a blow to Tony.

For one thing, the genius-billionaire was now living alone in the Avengers Tower. What with the move of the whole Avengers facility and personnel to the Stark property upstate, Tony was now by himself, in his lonesome, alone in this midtown skyscraper with no one else but his newly-restored bots and FRIDAY for company.

For another thing, since Tony was having trouble enough as it was dealing with the absence of JARVIS, he was completely vexed that Bruce had found in himself the absolute audacity to up and leave Tony to vanish to parts unknown.

 _And_ , as if it wasn’t enough that his brain-child and his science bro walked out on him, Tony was in relationship limbo with Pepper. Pepper, who had left in a huff after they’d had a major row following the Ultron-sending-Sokovia-aloft debacle and whom Tony hasn’t seen in seven weeks, four days and counting now. Pepper, for whom Tony had left Avengers active duty to scout for a farm…

Being as alone as he was now was not at all a good look for Tony because the lack of companionship was seriously starting to mess with his resolve about leaving active duty with the Avengers. Looking back, he knew he had tapped out for good reasons: he wanted to spend more time with Pepper; he wanted to be more active with the Stark Industries R&D and as bad as it was to have to admit it, he was not getting any younger so he wanted whatever time he had left to be devoted to not getting killed—thank you very much!

Besides, he knew that Pepper had always been antsy about him being an Avenger so he figured—what the hell—this was as good a time as any to leave the Avenging for people better suited to the task. But because Tony was still smarting from the scathing words exchanged during their last fight, none of which—he was certain, at least for his part—he really meant to say, Tony was having second thoughts about his initial decision to leave.

The painful twitch at the base of his chest whenever he thought about Nat, Clint, Thor, Bruce, Steve and everything they'd been through together was not helping any either. He missed the team. He missed his people. Part of him was always half-hoping whenever he would give Cap a call that the latter would ask him to reconsider his decision to tap out. But so far, it had never happened...

Tony knew he was being a dick, not looking in on them for quite a long time now. He couldn’t even remember the last time he went to the facility. And Steve sounded distracted and antsy the last time Tony’d given him a call. It was just that he wanted to keep them at arm’s length because his decision to leave was already on the brink of being blown to bits as it was; he didn’t need regular, painful reminders of what he was missing. Also, he didn’t want to clue them in on how much he missed them, exactly; he still had a shred of dignity left.

Not to mention, that for all his genius-level intellect was worth, he was still damn near clueless about how to deal with actual breathing, living, _feeling_ people.

He straightened up in his seat and snapped his fingers the way he always did. If Bruce didn't want to be found, then Tony sure could respect that, but that didn't mean he'd stop looking for his friend. That didn't mean he'd stop wondering where his friend could be. Especially if there was any real danger that Bruce truly needed some help. "FRIDAY, what are the odds that Bruce is off-world?"

 _"Off-world, Sir?"_  FRIDAY asked, a hint of confusion lacing her voice.

"You know...where Thor is...in space or in another dimension, so to speak..." Tony trailed off, considering the possibility or absurdity of the idea himself. "Is it not possible that a portal had opened in that part of the world and transported Bruce to another dimension, which he may be perfectly adaptable to, considering the physiology of the Hulk?"

_"A perfectly acceptable hypothesis, Sir. But for any degree of certainty, we may have to run it by Dr. Foster or Dr. Selvig for their confirmation. Additionally, we may have to collect more physical data rather than satellite-collected ones for more accurate readings to support your theory."_

Tony pursed his lips, conceding the point made by FRIDAY. It was, after all, outside of his area of expertise. Tony did have 2 doctorates but none of which were in the subject of astrophysics and jet-setting via wormhole.

"How does the rest of my week look like, sweets?"  Tony took to referring to FRIDAY with such fondness for reasons of genuine affection and lack of significant companionship. "I need time to gather the necessary data for my hypothesis before I go to Jane or Selvig with it—make it more persuasive. I may need to take out the prototype suit for a romp in the Banda and Timor Seas and surrounding islands and islets…see where I can pick up the trail." He pulled a holo-keyboard closer to him to begin work on his theory, twisting his neck this way and that, and stretching his arms over his head to psych himself up. If he was going to get the necessary support from either Erik Selvig or Jane Foster, he was going to have to be thorough. He was prepared to sweep the entire Southeast Asia and the Polynesian Islands twenty times over if it meant finding the data he needed to get to wherever the fuck Bruce was.

_"You have a charity event beginning Thursday afternoon. You were personally invited for the Fashion Week of Let's Hear it for the Boys."_

"Samuel Jackson, right?" Tony pouted. He couldn't believe that he and Pepper had agreed to commit to that celebrity event, which he’d had to turn down for two consecutive years previously because of his hectic schedule—having the Malibu mansion rebuilt, refurbishing the Stark Tower, building the Iron Legion, thrashing the Stark-cum-Avengers Tower anew and rebuilding the damn thing for a second time. "Any chance of me bailing out on Hollywood? I'm not in my element on the catwalk anyway. Besides, it’s going to be held in Vegas, right, as always? At my hotel and casino there? I’m really not in the mood for Vegas at the mo,” Tony spat. He was with Pepper the last time he was in Vegas; right now, he was not overly fond of the idea of having to reminisce one of the best vacations he’d ever had.

_"Actually, Sir, according to my records, it was your resort and casino in the Isles of Baime that you and Ms. Potts committed to the organizers for this year’s event to placate them due to your failure to participate for the past two years despite their insistent requests.”_

“I have a resort and casino in _where_?! Where the fuck is the Isles of Baime?” Tony asked, startled. He was usually aware of the state of his landholdings, but with the activities of the Avengers these past two years, looking for Loki’s scepter and raiding HYDRA secret bases, he was lucky if he could remember what he’d had for breakfast or the last time he’d _had_ breakfast…or sleep, for that matter. So he’d had to rely more on Pepper when it came to closing deals for real estate and capital purchases.

_“The Isles of Baime is a territory of Australia with a total land area of 34 square kilometers, consisting of one C-shaped and two pea-shaped islands, and about 18 islets, located 1,146 kilometers east-southeast of Jakarta, Indonesia, with Mt. Daramulun—or Mt. Dara—as its highest elevation at about 100 meters above sea level and about 46 kilometers of coastline._

_“It was annexed by the British Empire in 1859 and turned over to Australian control in 1960. Australia, in 2002, started to develop the Isles into a tourism destination for nature buffs._

_“It currently houses a small airport, a seaport, a geothermal power plant, 2 resorts, 4 hotels, 3 casinos and some 57 various commercial establishments with a population of about 700 permanent residents and about 300 to 1,000 transients depending on the season. The Isles boasts of superb trekking paths, estuaries for canoeing, nature trails, spelunking, rappelling, snorkeling and cliff-diving sites, endemic flora and fauna and the fast-becoming-famous Sky Hammock, which is a twenty-meter long Kevlar-bio engineered spider silk-hybrid hammock connecting two cliff edges that allows for more exciting star-gazing and nature tripping._

_“Southeast Asian and Australian luxury cruises began to include the Isles as a stop in late 2013. The_ Allegria Resort and Casino _in the Isles of Baime, which you personally own, opened in early 2014 to some 500 guests, most of whom were conveyed to the Isles by luxury cruise liners._

 _“Accessing the_ Allegria _database now… Based on guest registers and financial records of the past eighteen months, the_ Allegria _is doing fairly good business with profit margins at a steady 12-15% and customer satisfaction in the low 90s. Would you care for more information, Sir, or is that sufficient?”_ FRIDAY asked a gobsmacked Tony.

Tony mostly heard his AI’s unofficial report on the Isles of Baime, but what struck him was the _location_ of the Isles. It was fairly near the quadrants of the Banda Sea he had been desperately combing through, on and off, for the past couple of months. “OK…backtrack and freeze on the Isles’ location, FRIDAY. Coordinates?”

_“The Isles’ coordinates are 7.1057° S, 129.9103° E, Sir. Twenty kilometers outside of Quadrant 5.”_

“Logistics of the event? How do the organizers expect to hold a high-profile charity event in a remote island?” The engineer-billionaire was genuinely curious, but a portion of his dynamic mind was barely interested in the charity event and was already mapping out a plan for a self-imposed search and retrieval mission.

_“The movement decided to charter a cruise ship. The event is still a week-long one, coinciding with the Fourth of July weekend, with planned activities aboard the ship as well as on the island. It’s generated a considerable amount of interest in the various social circles. Pledges are already record-high. Should I already send the organizers your regrets for the third year running, Sir?”_

Disregarding the niggling diatribe at the back of his mind that he was already too old for spur-of-the-moment vacations— _trips_ —like this one, that he needed to call Pepper to fix things or at least have closure regarding where they really stood, that he had about a hundred other things that demand his attention—foremost of which was to pay a visit to the Avengers facility, which he hadn’t done for several months now—but Tony clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation, excitement unchecked. He didn’t want to admit it outright, but maybe this ‘vacation’ was coming at a most opportune time.

 _And_ he did have a big, green friend to find.

“Negative FRIDAY. Pull something together, won’t you? You know what I need. This King of the World is going on a boat ride,” Tony piped in, a devious grin on his face.

###

The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal was bustling with people as Steve Rogers weaved through the throngs of humanity, shouldering his duffel bag after having just plucked it off the security check counter. He felt the pockets of his leather bomber jacket for the event brochure, his cruise documentation and his passport, and satisfied that they were where they were supposed to be, he hiked the duffel higher up his shoulder while he looked around to observe the well-dressed people, the security personnel who were sticking out of the crowd like sore thumbs and the cruise personnel trying to guide the passengers to their designated entryways.

Steve was on the cusp of his first-ever vacation in nearly _four years_ , not counting the short road trip he went on from New York to Washington DC after the failed Chitauri invasion and prior to joining SHIELD. He couldn’t help the lump of apprehension sitting at the pit of his stomach as he kept on eyeing the people milling about the dockside. It seemed to him like he might have forgotten what it felt like to get some free time for himself.

But Natasha had been insistent that he accept the invitation to the _Let’s Hear it for the Boys Fashion Week_. It was also given the imprimatur by the Avengers’ PR team, especially after the negative publicity storm they’ve been weathering for a few months now. Although the incidents in Wakanda and Sokovia were way behind them, the Avengers’ response to the destructive assassination attempt against several representatives to the United Nations during the UN Summit, where the Accords were being discussed for approval of the member states, and the resulting high-speed chase around the Hamburg metropolis didn’t exactly do them any favors when it came to endearing them to the press and the politicians. So against Steve’s better judgment, he was strongly advised to accept the Fashion Week invitation to muster any kind of positive PR for the team.

Plus, Nat said that Steve was badly in need of a vacation. Because in between training the New Avengers, managing the Avengers facility, responding to incidents and looking for Bucky, he was lucky if he could squeeze in quick coffee with Agent Sharon Carter, formerly of SHIELD and currently affiliated with the CIA, whom he was seeing unofficially now and again.

So here he was, four days short of his 98th birthday, about to embark on a week-long cruise-slash-island retreat for a semblance of peace of mind.

The luxury liner sat like a shiny behemoth of rustic wood and steel, impressive in its majesty. It was aptly named _Sparkle of Valor_ like a not-funny dig at Steve who was beginning to feel less and less sparkly with every step closer to the ship and uncharacteristically terrified of what he’d let Natasha strong-arm him into doing.

The phone in his pocket trilled and vibrated. “Steve Rogers,” he intoned crisply after one and a half rings.

“This better be the last time you’re answering your phone, Steve. This was a test, and just so you know, you failed,” Natasha Romanoff barked from the other end of the connection. Speak of the devil.

Steve rolled his eyes, sighed and greeted, “hello to you, too, Nat. I have every right to answer my phone. My vacation hasn’t even started yet. I’m still at the docks.” Steve handed his documents to cruise personnel who cleared him and gestured him through the second inspection queue. “Besides, how else will you reach me when a situation comes up?”

“We’ll make do when something comes up—improvise, if need be; we’re not completely useless, you know,” Natasha retorted, mildly piqued. “Sam is vigilant at patrolling the grounds. Vision is very reliable—nothing much escapes his notice, and Wanda’s keeping to the training regimen you established for her. Everything’s copacetic. If anything happens that we cannot handle, I can call in either Clint or Tony or both. We’re not short of heavy-hitters on speed dial, Cap, you can count on us.”

Steve couldn’t help but chuckle. He’s been eating stress and worry twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, four weeks a month, for several months now that _not_ having to worry about anything was seriously throwing him off. “Has Jim checked back in with you?”

“Not for another 7 hours. By which time, you’re already supposed to be halfway through the Atlantic with no phone reception so don’t expect that I’ll be passing any messages along,” the redhead master assassin stated so matter-of-factly that any whisper of contradiction was asking for bodily harm.

“My Starkphone has satellite reception up to a depth of fifty meters even through four feet-thick solid concrete walls. Believe me, I’ll get that report if it’s the last thing I do,” Steve challenged back with a playful sneer as he made his way up the gangplank he had been directed to.

“That can be arranged… You’re supposed to be on _holiday_ , Steve. You can start acting like it. He’ll turn up when he turns up; your world doesn’t have to stop spinning until he does,” Natasha reminded him, gently reproachful.

Of course, both of them knew the person that Natasha was referring to.

For two years since Steve had found out that Sergeant James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes was alive, Steve had never stopped looking for him. Before, he had his friend, Sam Wilson aka Falcon, help him track the wayward soldier down based on Natasha’s initial intel about the origins of the Winter Soldier. And then, after Ultron was contained, Steve engaged the assistance of their android teammate, Vision, to try to get a digital read on Bucky's whereabouts to no avail. This time around, it was Col. James Rhodes aka War Machine, who was commissioned to try to pick up Bucky's scent. The trail had gone cold in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The alarming thing about trying to bring Bucky in was that their intel had unearthed information that certain pockets of the organization that was HYDRA were still desirous to recover the Winter Soldier as the latter had considerably been a valuable asset. Steve was about as ready to let them have Bucky as he was to fight baddies in nothing more than a star-spangled thong. He wanted real-time information as to his friend's whereabouts so much, he was practically foaming at the mouth.

"I know, Nat. It's just that... I'm worried that HYDRA will get to him first. And we know what they intend to do with him. Finding him before they do will also mean neutralizing a potential threat even before it becomes one," the Captain answered, pressing the mobile closer to his ear and squeezing past a group of well-dressed but rowdy group of middle-aged women, one of whom was giving him an interested once-over while elbowing her other friends and motioning towards Steve.

"And I'm only now just starting to realize that this _vacation_ might not be such a terrific idea," Steve muttered into the phone's mouthpiece before setting his mouth into a hard line.

"Do me a favor and give it a chance before you start complaining like a wench in a hissy fit," Natasha countered, vaguely threatening. "You never know; you might end up enjoying it."

"I highly doubt that. An isolated mountain cabin is starting to look mighty promising right now. Remind me next time that I need a break from work that—," But the rest of what Steve was going to say died an abrupt death in his throat when who should he find in the middle of a group of what he believed to be the organizers of the event but none other than Steve's genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist teammate himself: Tony Stark?

"Steve? Steve? Are you still there?"

"Y—yeah, yeah... Nat... I just saw Tony. Tony's here—I think he's also joining the cruise," said Steve, doing a double take on the group he just passed to confirm that it was indeed Tony Stark in the middle of that bunch, looking for all the world like he was very much in his element.

"Tony? As in _Stark_? Tony Stark?"

"Yes! Which means if any situation comes up in the meantime, both of us are out of commission," Steve elucidated to his teammate over the phone. "That does it. I'm getting off this liner. I can probably go another six months without a vacation anyway." Steve snappily turned on his heel to head back to the gangplank he had climbed earlier with every intention to disembark.

"You'll do no such thing or I swear to god I'll tell Sharon how you like to sing Beach Boys songs at the top of your lungs in the shower. I’ve got audio evidence to prove it, too. It’ll be video evidence next, which, trust me—is going to be easy to procure with Vision around,” Natasha threatened.

Steve’s breath caught in his throat and he stopped in his tracks. How could Natasha have known about that?! “You’re unbelievable!” The Captain hissed, baring his teeth in the process. He couldn’t believe Natasha’s gall; but he couldn’t believe he was also letting her browbeat him into staying put by using his Beach Boys shower renditions against him.

He must have been prowling to and fro along the narrow deck like a caged lion so much that he was starting to attract attention to himself because it was then that Steve’s gaze collided with Tony’s, and he noted how the brunette gave a quite perceptible start upon seeing him aboard the same cruise ship. Breathing a defeated sigh, Steve walked towards where his teammate and friend was to acknowledge him but kept the mobile phone pressed to his ear.

“This will do you a world of good, Steve—just give it a chance, please. And give my regards to Tony. I cannot believe I’m saying this out loud, but I actually kinda miss that jerk,” said Natasha before they cut the call with a hurried goodbye on Natasha’s part and an uneasy one on Steve’s.

“Are mine eyes deceiving me or is it really Captain Sass and Spangles, ditching world-saving in favor of an island getaway?!” Tony Stark stepped out of the encircling group of organizers, his brown eyes twinkling like warm honey and offering his hand to Steve by way of welcome.

The organizers wordlessly dispersed then as if they had just been waiting for Tony Stark’s dismissal. Tony didn’t even give them a mumbled acknowledgement in parting; it was like when Steve had come over, Tony had eyes only for him. It disconcerted the Captain to no end.

“Stark,” Steve greeted formally but cordially, gripping Tony’s proffered hand and shaking it. It had been six months or so since he’d seen Tony last, and he couldn’t help but notice the subtle changes in his genius-billionaire teammate: Tony seemed to have lost some weight; his hair was longer, more tousled; his face more drawn as if there was a weariness to him that was more permeating than when they’d got their asses nearly handed to them by Ultron in Sokovia.

“Jeez, are we back to _Stark_ now? Just ‘cause I haven’t been by the facility in a couple of months doesn’t mean I get the cold-shoulder-last-name treatment from you again,” noticed Tony, chuckling and folding his arms across his chest.

“A _couple_ of months? Try six months and two weeks. I’m surprised you still know me,” Steve countered, infusing friendly humor in his tone. But he knew what he sounded like in his own ears. He was _annoyed_ —annoyed that when Tony said he wanted out of active duty, Steve wasn’t expecting that what the engineer-billionaire meant was a clean break that only entailed short ‘how’s the facility doing? Need any equipment?’ calls every three weeks and hour-long visits every three months or so, which were usually simultaneous with major equipment deliveries and mostly just to check on Jim Rhodes’ health and well-being. Steve had only ever seen him in the facility twice because during the other times that Tony visited, the Captain was on short-notice surveillance missions. And then, six months ago, Tony had stopped visiting completely…

“Hey! _You’re_ the one who couldn’t wait to get off the phone when I called you three weeks ago—,” Tony protested.

“—to ask how the facility was doing, if we needed any equipment,” Steve interjected. “That’s _always_ why you call, but it’s never to ask how we are—our morale—or…or how’s our training doing or what movies or team-bonding things we’ve done, or just to chat! You don’t tell us how you are, or what you’ve been busy with—or just things that _friends_ call their friends to tell! It’s always ‘how’s the facility doing? What pieces of equipment do you need? Alright, I’ll buy one or build one and give it to you. Let me know what else you need. Bye.’—” Steve mimicked. He knew he was out of line, complaining to Tony for being distant. After all, it was hardly the man’s fault if he was busy—and Tony tended to be _tremendously busy_ , being a genius billionaire with a tech conglomerate in his name and all. But Steve had thought that the battles the team had been through together fetched more than just occasional cursory calls and obligated visits.

He had thought that after everything they’d suffered through together, they were all friends at least. If not a family.

But maybe it was too much to ask, even for someone like him who’d been born and had grown up in the choke-hold of two world wars, sickly and friendless—save for one—and then orphaned at a young age, who’d had all his friends die on him during the war and in the course of a seventy-year-long death-sleep.

Tony was unusually silent during his tirade; only a pensive regard of Steve with his arresting brown eyes betrayed the depth of his thoughts. Steve was afraid he might have gone too far, sounding like a clingy lover, because Tony was seldom rendered speechless. By anyone or anything.

“—you know what? It doesn’t matter,” Steve abruptly backtracked, annoyance spent. He could tell Tony was about to say something, but the latter was distracted from it when a parade of business suit-clad men trickled past them. Every one of them greeted Tony with varying levels of enthusiasm.

Steve was about to step away from his celebrity teammate, content to leave the engineer to his new acquaintances and satisfied that at least this time, he’d had the last word on Tony Stark, when the latter, murmuring hurried apologies to the new arrivals, suddenly grabbed Steve by the wrist and dragged him away.

Now, he was not an easy person to lug even at the best of times, but Tony hid in his lean and sinewy frame unexpected strength, and Steve, due to the surprise at Tony’s response to his minor rant, let the smaller man haul him through more narrow hallways and decks, up stairways, through one of the many starboard terraces of the cruise ship until they reached the bow of the liner, when, as if prompted, a foghorn signaling the imminent departure of the ship began to hoot and reverberate throughout the vessel.

Tony let go of Steve’s wrist, and the latter hitched up his duffel bag that had slid a bit off his shoulder while he was getting dragged away.

The two men remained motionless, riding out the shrill sounding of the foghorn. And then, as if he couldn’t contain what he wanted to say any longer, Tony faced Steve, took a resolute breath, and opened his mouth to yell above the din.

“Look…I’m sorry, alright?” Tony practically screamed, just as the noise from the foghorn died.

So Steve got an earful of the unmistakable apology. He couldn’t help himself; he actually smiled with a slight shake of his head. “Are mine ears deceiving me or did _the_ Tony Stark just apologize?”

“Sass. ‘s good,” the billionaire complimented, grudgingly. “Don’t get too used to it. But I’ve been known, every once in a while, to admit it when I’m being a jackass,” said Tony with a casual flick of his wrist and a slight eye roll. “Yeah—no, seriously though…my behavior is reprehensible. I should have visited more often; I should have called more; I should have acted like the friend we are all supposed to be to one another. And I hope you can imagine the physical pain these little admissions are absolutely causing me,” continued the brunette with gritted teeth.

Well…since they were being the buddies that they were supposed to be, albeit a bit belatedly, Steve also felt like apologizing. He felt like he also had something to do with letting this rift get as far as it did. “I appreciate it, _Tony_ ,” emphasized Steve with a quirk of one corner of his lips. “I apologize, too, for not calling you out on it sooner. Friendship goes both ways after all. And I should’ve said something to you.”

The billionaire nodded once, accepting. Though he seemed like he wanted to say something more, he drew his mouth into a line and thought better of it.

Looking at Tony with his blonde head at an angle as if deep in thought, Steve was struck again by the happenstance of running into his teammate in this charity cruise to a remote island getaway, of all possible places. He was just about to ask it out loud when Tony blurted out, “ _so_ … now that we have that out of the way. Fancy running into _you_ here, of all places,” uncannily taking the words right out of Steve’s mouth.

Steve was momentarily taken aback by that that he had to shake his head inwardly to clear his thoughts enough to answer Tony. “I was strong-armed by Nat. She said I needed a vacation. So when the movement came calling with an invitation, I was practically ganged-up on by Nat and the PR guys,” he sheepishly admitted. “And you?” He threw the question back at Tony.

“I’m missing something. I thought this is the best place to be to find it,” came the cryptic reply. “And you know me… I like a good party, so I thought, what the hell?”

Before Steve could comment on Tony’s answer, hubbub broke out on the ship’s multiple decks and the ship started lurching. They were leaving the docks and setting sail.

“Oh good! Come on—there’s something I’ve always wanted to try.” Grabbing Steve’s wrist again, Tony dragged him closer to the edge of the ship’s bow. Steve dropped his duffel on a niche along the way and reluctantly joined Tony at the very nose of the vessel, bypassing several barriers cordoning the area from access to passengers. He watched open-mouthed and narrow-eyed as Tony climbed the railings at the very edge, tipped his head towards the sky, spread his arms perpendicular to his torso.

The ship began to pick up speed, judging by the wind beginning to whip at their blonde and black hair. It was then that Tony, at the top of his lungs, bellowed, “I’m the King of the World!” And absolutely howled like a lunatic.

Steve just smiled and shook his head, incredulous.

Their gazes met again, and from where Tony was—hair whipping in the wind and body haloed by the early afternoon summer sun—Steve couldn’t help but notice the stunning glow in the brunette’s warm brown eyes. “What?!” Tony asked.

“You’re nuts! You should keep back; you don’t want to fall off there!” Steve hollered a reply at Tony’s quizzical look.

“Seriously?! That’s all you’re going to say?”

“What were you expecting I’d say?”

“That you got the reference,” Tony said, raising his voice to fight the din of the wind. He stepped off the railing and bored his eyes into Steve’s blue ones. When he didn’t find the spark of understanding he must have been expecting there, he supplied, “Titanic, 1997? Ringing any bells?”

“Tony, the Titanic sank even before I was born—1912,” Steve replied, confused that it was Tony who was getting the references wrong.

“No, I meant the _movie_! What? _Seriously_ , you haven’t seen it?!”

“I've been meaning to see it, but I think it’s farther down in my list,” Steve stated, matter-of-factly.

“What kind of shit list is that if _Titanic_ isn’t right on top of it?”

“It’s a chronological list of Academy Award Best Picture winners from 1945 and the recent cult classics like Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill, The Hunger Games, Twilight—“

“Oh that’s definitely one fucked-up list if _Twilight_ ’s already on it and Titanic is still farther down the list!” Tony protested, throwing his hands in the air melodramatically. “That’s it! I’m putting Titanic on your cabin TV’s Netflix, and you’re watching it tonight whether you like it or not, Cap! No sane person should be going on a cruise and _not_ know Titanic,” said Tony, clapping a hand against Steve’s shoulder and squeezing it. The gesture was familiar and so characteristically Tony’s; it was then that it fully dawned on Steve how much he had missed the man standing before him.

“Whatever you say, Tony.”


	2. Distractions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to remind everyone that this is in its unbeta-edited glory so if you've got issues about typos, grammar and inconsistencies, I would love to hear them so I could get to fixing them, alrighty?
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's left comments and Kudos and keep 'em coming...
> 
> You might have noticed, too, that I'm now pretty sure that there will be 16 chapters to this story so... shorter than www.stem.org but still quite plot-rich especially in the later chapters, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here...
> 
> I present you the next (pretty short) chappie...

Dropping his duffel bag on top of the neatly-made bed in his cabin, Steve looked around to survey where he was staying for the next three days and two nights while _Sparkle of Valor_ was making its way to the Isles of Baime. Though a bit confined, it was pleasant and homey. Steve never did like too much space anyway, so the size of his present accommodations was more than adequate for him.

After the ship’s departure from the seaport of origin and his and Tony’s short stint on the bow, they decided to take a stroll on the multitude of decks and areas to familiarize themselves with the cruise liner’s set-up. They went to the ultra-modern movie theater, the starboard-side sun deck that resembled an Italian city piazza sans the old structures but with the patterned cobblestones, greenery, rustic benches, outdoor tables topped with bright-colored canopies, the promenade deck with its long queue of extra-comfy and utilitarian recliners, the lounge that featured stuffed couches and down throw pillows, coffee tables, wide windows to view the ocean with, a variety of plants in huge and intricately-designed vases, the gym that boasted of exercise equipment that would make trainers weep, the Olympic-sized swimming pool with two levels of diving boards and a luxurious Jacuzzi that could accommodate eight people easy, the ginormous library in the heart of the ship with ceiling-to-floor shelves of books in handmade hard-binding, and the Grand Ballroom with the jaw-dropping crystal chandelier, tables and tall windows clad in and adorned with silk, shiny granite counters in the every-alcoholic’s-dream wet bar, long buffet tables with a crystal and jade centerpiece, mood candles and flower arrangements in blown glass vases, a stage with a band stand and a black Steinway grand piano.

Tony breezed through their exploration, half-bored and preoccupied despite the grandiose spaces they looked in on. Steve, who had always considered himself too easily impressed by things, having grown up in a time when having little was already too much, openly ogled—awe-struck—at the elegance and extravagance of the _Sparkle of Valor_.

Steve couldn’t help but notice that tidbit, among many, about his erstwhile teammate: how it took so much more to impress one Tony Stark. The Captain guessed that since Tony came from money and he was a self-proclaimed futurist/visionary, there just weren’t many things around that still inspire awe in him. Then again, Steve had seen on numerous occasions that gleam to Tony’s eyes—that flash of interest—even while doing something as simple as fixing a malfunctioning _juicer_ in the personnel cafeteria during one of his short visits to the Avengers facility.

Though his mind was racing with a mishmash of thoughts, he decided to keep his hands just as busy by stowing his duffel bag away in the dresser, opening and closing the various drawers to check their contents, checking behind and underneath furniture and feeling the grooves and indentations in the otherwise smooth walls for foreign and unwanted objects like hidden cameras or microphones. Living with Natasha and having been made quite recently aware that his Beach Boys quirk was no longer a secret definitely put Steve on his guard now more than ever before.

Done with inspection, Steve plopped down on the bed and flipped the event brochure open to casually study it. There was supposed to be a Kick-off Banquet in the sun deck at 6 in the evening followed by an attendance-is-optional screening in the theater of several indie films funded and supported by the event organizers, the _Let’s Hear it for the Boys Movement_.

It was still fairly early, so Steve decided to see what was available on TV.

He wasn’t particularly fond of watching TV, or at least, he had never enjoyed the shows that his teammates seemed to like. Still preferring old-fashioned books or the dependable pencil-and-paper combo, he only parked himself in front of the television during weekly movie nights with the team or when he felt like crossing something off his list.

Of course, when he wasn’t reading or drawing or watching movies, he was training and sparring with the team, running missions, doing surveillance or preventing a potential world-ending catastrophe that he really hasn’t got enough time to squeeze in some TV-watching; he didn’t even have enough time to _date_ , much less keep abreast of new episodes of some weekly TV show or other.

Taking to heart Natasha’s advice to try to enjoy himself on his so-called vacation, Steve breathed a deep sigh and shifted on the bed to try to get more comfortable. He was going to watch TV while waiting for the Kick-off Banquet, and he was going to _enjoy_ it, having all this free time in his hands.

Fiddling with the remote, he saw the Netflix option on his television and clicked on it. True to his word, Tony had got Titanic lined up on Steve’s Netflix, scheduled to start playing at 8:30 that evening.

The vessel-localized communications console on the bedside table rang, intruding into Steve’s musings. “Hel—lo?” He asked, uncertainly.

“I’ve a big-ass melon on the wall of my stateroom. It’s disconcerting. I prefer a mirror in the ceiling. So I could keep looking at myself as I fall asleep,” an unmistakably irritated Tony Stark piped up from the other end of the line.

It was funny. Steve didn’t even remember giving Tony his cabin number, yet the guy was now calling him—and even found access to his damn television!

“You have a _stateroom_?! Also, how did you know which cabin’s mine?” Steve asked, cradling the receiver between his jaw and shoulder. He knew at the back of his mind that asking Tony that question was pretty pointless, but he forged ahead anyway.

“What—like it’s a state-secret-type _hard_ info to get?! I have my ways. I knew what your cabin number was probably before you even knew how to get there yourself. Oh and yeah—I have a stateroom. Have you met _me_? I’m awesome! I deserve no less than a stateroom,” Tony said with a snort.

“What can I do for you, _Your Awesomeness_?” Steve countered, trying to keep the smile out of his voice.

“You’re really getting good at that! I don’t know whether to congratulate or denigrate Romanoff for it’s her immense influence on you that I detect,” said Tony, sounding like he was trying to hammer something at the other end of the line.

“Please tell me you’re not trying to hammer the melon off the wall,” Steve asked, sitting straighter up in bed.

“Nope—I’m trying to recalibrate something. I’m building an improvised satellite receiver.”

Steve blinked twice, unsure of how to respond to that. Tony had always been a bit eccentric if not outright crazy. It was part of his charm. Steve wouldn’t put building an improvised satellite receiver aboard a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean past Tony Stark.

“Are you going to the Kick-off Banquet later, by any chance?” Tony forged ahead.

“I’m still thinking about it,” Steve answered, intentionally vague on his chosen response. He discerned that Natasha meant well, but he was really worried about Bucky and wanted any information about the latter’s whereabouts that he could get. So he couldn’t help but anticipate getting word from Jim.

Tony hummed as if considering how to reply. “Don’t tell me that you’re not going because you have a more pressing engagement to attend? We're in a party boat in the middle of the ocean, Cap! Where else do you need to be?”

Steve hated to admit it but Tony’s enthusiasm was infectious, so much so that he couldn’t help but smile. "Fine, Tony, _fine_. I'm going to the Banquet, if you are. Guess the improvised satellite receiver will just have to wait," Steve said, daring Tony to say otherwise.

"You are one sneaky son of a b— _beetroot_ , aren't you? Right, Cap. I'll meet you there then," Tony muttered, catching himself before he said a cussword lest he irritate the former soldier into not coming to the specially scheduled dinner.

Steve returned the receiver to its cradle and then, lying back down, folded an arm behind his head. Chuckling, he turned his attention back to the television screen.

He was still worried about Bucky and eager to hear Jim's report—if he had any leads as to the former HYDRA asset's location, but he grudgingly admitted to himself that he was wound up so tight that he had already forgotten how to just let loose and enjoy himself. All his life he'd been fighting some war or other, making sacrifice plays and planning one mission after another; yet he'd never really fought for what he wanted, chose his own needs over another's or planned what he wanted his personal life to amount to. This was already his second chance at life—in this different place and time—but it's like he'd never learned anything from the first. He was still doing what he thought he should be doing, what he thought he was made for.

He once told Tony that the guy who wanted a family, a quiet life on a farm went into the ice seventy five years ago and a different guy came out. Because he didn't want those things anymore? No, he didn't. Those things used to be desired by him because he was very much a product of his time. But the hard truth was: he still doesn't know what he really wants. And even until now, he was still very much dictated by the demands of this time and other people's expectations of Captain America.

He so wanted to find Bucky. He did. But if he was going to be really true to himself for once in his life, he should admit that he was tired. He was _damn_ tired. He just wanted to remember what it felt like to be a goofball. To play hooky. To blow a hole through responsibility and just do what was fun—consequences be damned.

Steve remembered that Bucky once told him that he was too serious, uptight and upstanding for his own good. And for the first time, in a long time, Steve agreed with him.

Maybe Natasha was right, too. He needed this vacation—this 'me' time—for more reasons than he was willing to come to terms with.

And there was really no one better to distract him, remind him how to have fun again, than Tony Stark—the King of hedonism, self-indulgent whims and bad ideas himself.

###

He had always sucked at waiting. But now there really was nothing else to do but wait.

Tony had already installed a crude satellite signal receiver on the balcony of his port-side stateroom, calibrated it to detect gamma rays to the highest degree of sensitivity he could manage given that most of the materials he could come up with came from the room's television's Netflix console, a hairdryer, and his portable suit's arc reactor and spare parts, hooked up the readings to his smartphone, devised an algorithm to detect a pattern no matter how obscure and to ignore background noise or the possibility of spurious trails, and to come up with various such patterns for future verification—if, by any chance, any of them would lead to Bruce.

The genius tech magnate had already hacked into the ship's computer and navigation systems, enabling him to send or receive a distress signal as far as the moon, if he wanted to—after all one could never really tell when such capability could come in handy. He had also finished reconfiguring all the Stark satellites this side of the globe to turn all their eyes on the ship, chart its course, make sure there were no threats on their way, fry all the systems of any threats it did detect, and throw any data on the matter of Bruce-hunting his way. He had already accessed the Captain's smartTV and queued up Titanic on his Netflix.

In short, there was nothing else left for him to do and he was fucking bored already. Five and a half hours into a week-long gig and he was ready to shave his head with boredom.

Stuffing his phone in the back pocket of his trousers, he finger-combed his already stylishly-tousled dark hair and ambled towards the sun deck where the Kick-off Banquet was supposed to be held. It was in the final stairway before reaching the sun deck that Tony bumped into Steve who was also obviously on his way to the special dinner.

"Hey Tony," Steve greeted, his otherwise serious face breaking into a close-mouthed but bedimpled grin.

"'sup, Cap?" Tony responded, clapping a good-natured hand against the Captain's right shoulder as was his usual greeting.

Steve cleared his throat. He looked embarrassed about something, but Tony couldn't, for the life of him, tell why that was. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing," Steve denied. "That's a nice shirt." The Captain complimented with a curt nod towards Tony's attire, digressing. "We should hurry or we'll be late."

Tony snorted. "Don't worry about it. Nothing interesting happens until _I_ arrive anyway," he scoffed and, letting loose a playful jab against Steve's bicep, continued, "you don't look half bad yourself, old man. What's that you're wearing—Diesel jeans?"

"I'm underdressed, aren't I?" Steve asked, worry tingeing his bright blue eyes. "I didn't pack anything more formal than this, I'm afraid," he explained, looking down and pulling at his round-necked dark blue long-sleeved shirt the hem of which barely brushed against the waist of his fairly decent stonewashed Diesel jeans. The shirt, as every piece of clothing that Steve seemed to own, was tight across the shoulders and chest, showing off the Captain's ripped pectorals and broad shoulders quite nicely.

Tony resented the man anew. He knew he must look like an old and weary waif clad in expensive clothes like a dime-a-dozen poser next to Steve, but as Stark men had never been the insecure type, Tony shoved the feeling at the back of his mind.

“It’s _fine_ , Cap. I don’t think anyone on this ship will feel the least bit aggrieved regarding your informal wear for the night, especially with the promise hanging in the air of possibly seeing you clad in nothing else but the many, many swim trunks you _did_ pack or—God bless America— _shirtless_!” He said, and mock swooned with a conspiratorial wink towards Steve. The latter actually blushed a bit and averted his gaze, looking sheepish.

The sun deck was a literal smorgasbord of movie, sports and fashion celebrities, rich socialites, tycoons, heiresses, influential personalities, a handful of politicians, and a smattering of the rabble—who seemed like they were trying not to appear star-struck but failing miserably if their wide round eyes, dazed smiles and look of ill-concealed glee were anything to go by—who must have saved their hard-earned salary for a year or two just to participate in this celebrity event.

The two Avengers worked the floor, mostly because of Tony, who had to stop at nearly every table on the way, exchanging pleasantries with the various personalities. Steve just stood off to Tony’s side, looking out-of-place but polite, so Tony made the effort to introduce him to every single person they stopped to greet. Unconsciously, Tony sometimes made contact with the small of the Captain's back to nudge the blonde forward when he was being introduced.

When they finally made it to their table, Steve breathed a sigh of visible relief and offered Tony a tight-lipped smile. “God—you know practically everyone here,” he murmured against the side of Tony’s head; his breath warmed the shell of Tony’s ear, the brunette had to stop himself from shivering because of it.

“Hey— _you_ know the one person that’s worth knowing, and that's what's important,” Tony assured Steve, smirking.

A disturbing realization suddenly niggled like an itch in the depth of Tony’s genius mind. Was he actually flirting with Steve Rogers right now?! Rewinding the last three minutes—hell, the last _five hours_ —in his mind's eye, Tony wanted to giggle in his recognition that _indeed_ he had been flirting with the Captain. And he was enjoying it. He was that starved for human interaction that he was _flirting_ with Steve Rogers, of all people!

While Tony had never considered flirting to be beneath him, he learned over time to be discerning when it came to people he would flirt with. He had been involved in numerous charges of sexual harassment in the past that resulted in media fanfare that hurt the company, so he had been advised, quite insistently, to tame his flirting. Nowadays, he rarely flirted, and never with any of his teammates because, really, the Avengers weren't that much fun in the flirting department: Thor was too brusque and clueless to the ways of this world; Clint was too sarcastic and too much like Tony that flirting with him felt like something masturbatory; and of course, flirting with Natasha was always fun if one had a death wish. And Tony had never tried flirting with the Captain because the former had always thought the latter to be too uptight to flirt with.

It was another reason he was missing Bruce like he was missing a limb. Because with Bruce, everything was easy and uncomplicated—they flirted without shame and reservations; they verbally and intellectually sparred with good humor like how Tony always imagined blood brothers did; they bantered and teased one another without fear of offending each other or going too far because it just came naturally for them. Bruce was Tony's unofficial therapist, sounding board, conscience, human early warning device, and Pepper-substitute—only with less cockblocking and more sciencing. Bruce was also more tolerant of Tony's immature antics than Rhodey was, so there were days that Tony liked Bruce's understated company more.

This feeling of crippling loss over the good doctor's absence had to go...

Clearing his throat to stop consciously thinking about flirting with Steve and missing Bruce, Tony reached for his water goblet and took a swig. He let his gaze wander, took in the summer-y decorations adorning the sun deck, met the eye of several more people he knew from somewhere, and basically ignored Steve.

The genius-billionaire didn't want to overwhelm the former soldier with his attention—and Tony Stark's attention can be damn oppressive. Aside from flirting, Tony's been known to give too-lavish gifts or to talk one's ear off when he liked or was comfortable with someone. He reminded himself that Steve was _not_ Bruce. That while his relationship with Steve had considerably improved from the time they practically bit each other's head off on the SHIELD helicarrier, it was nowhere near comparable with the ease of Tony's relationship with Bruce.

"How do you know most of these people, Tony? Like—for starters, how do you even know Samuel L. Jackson?" Steve asked, intruding into Tony's wandering thoughts.

"I've donated to several charities that Sam supports. We've been on many a charity benefits together that we became fairly acquainted before we became really good friends," he answered. "Same goes for Sting, Donatella Versace and Tyra Banks. The rest of these people are from my various circles—science geek circles, social and business circles and what-not."

Steve nodded, satisfied with the answer he got.

There was some dead air between them for a stretch, which Tony again filled with his internal musings. There were actually so many questions that Tony wanted to ask Steve: how Nat was, how Vision was, how come Steve never tried to change Tony’s mind and ask him to come back to Avengers active duty, but he didn't want to start again, thinking that it might tick the other man off. And really, the Captain wouldn't be wrong—if Tony had many questions about the rest of the team, it was because he had not been physically or emotionally available to his so-called friends and teammates for the longest time. It was all Tony's goddamned fault.

"How's Natasha?" Tony blurted out, his intense curiosity getting the best of him. He knew about Natasha and Bruce's attraction for each other. Of course, he did. He wasn't Bruce's friend for nothing. And with Bruce missing, he could only imagine how much it must be killing Nat inside—no matter how bad-ass she was on the outside.

"She's coping. She distracts herself by mothering me. But she misses him. I know for a fact that she prefers command center duty because she likes having the means to try to keep looking for him," Steve replied, taking a drink of water himself. "She's never stopped believing that he'd turn up or that he, himself, would voluntarily come back."

"Yeah. I'm with her on that one," Tony mumbled in assent.

"You're also still looking for him, aren't you?" Steve asked, pulling his seat closer to Tony's.

"Yeah. I'm not having much luck myself, even with all cutting edge tech at my disposal. But as I'm not used to _not_ getting what I want, I think I'll keep at this until Brucie-bear himself gets tired of me trying to hunt him down and he'd show up at the doorstep of the Tower, begging me to stop," Tony said through gritted teeth.

Steve nodded once, distracting himself with straightening out the silverware flanking his dinner plate.

"What about you—any luck with your own MIA buddy?" Tony asked, hastily swallowing another mouthful of water.

Steve's eyes narrowed, seemingly shocked that Tony knew about that. "How did—"

"—Please, Cap. You're using my tech and piggybacking on my satellites. There's no way in God's green earth I wouldn't know the pains you've been staking trying to find this guy," Tony muttered, rolling his eyes. "Give me some credit here. I know I screwed up with Ultron and I know I'm a spaz in the being-a-friend department but for you to think that I don't know jack about this is just—"

"—I don't mean to make you think that. It's just that—" Steve began, but before he could really get elbows-deep in his explanation, the evening's program started with an enthusiastic greeting from the night's master of ceremonies.

Some of the more involved organizers were invited to speak, jokes were delivered, shout-outs to the more sparkly celebrities were given, and through it all, Tony fidgeted in his seat. It wasn’t that the Captain was poor company or that the event was boring—alright, so it was a _bit_ boring—but Tony was restless. He really couldn’t care less about keeping up appearances with these people; he had a completely different purpose for being on this trip than just simply a vacation after all. For all he knew, Bruce was caught in-between dimensions and needed help, which was why he couldn’t return or even make contact with any of them. He really, really, really _loathed_ waiting.

Before he knew it, he was being nudged by Cap. The emcee had called his name and asked if he could give some remarks as one of this year’s major sponsors—with him being the owner of the resort and casino they were traveling to, and everything.

He walked as jovially to the makeshift stage as he could, hoping that none of his indifference was seeping through his ‘reserved for the public’ smile.

“Thanks everyone! Yeah—aaah… You all know how I like a good party, that’s something I’m highly decorated for… And you also know how I feel about charities and raising awareness, and seeing as this event involves all _three_ —then I thought, where do I sign up?” There was a smattering of laughter and agreeable murmurs. “Offering up _The Allegria_ is a small price to pay for what the movement, through this event, accomplishes, bringing us, beautiful people, together, raising ridiculous amounts of money and—“

It was then the phone in the back pocket of his jeans started to vibrate persistently. It was his Bruce-alert. His signal receiver had picked something up!

“—and, and… helping a lot of people the world over. So I’ll shut up now, and let’s enjoy ourselves for the rest of the week!”

Tony hastily made his way off the small stage to appreciative applause. He was halfway towards the nearest stairway leading to the lower decks, thumbing his phone to check exactly what the sensors may have found, when he realized that Cap would be wondering about his sudden exit. Leaving in the middle of dinner that he, himself, pestered Cap to attend was not very friend-like, so pirouetting on the balls of his feet, Tony went back to Cap’s table, ignoring the others’ pointed staring, to give him a polite goodbye and a quick explanation.

“I thought you had forgotten where your table was,” Steve joked with an uncertain grin.

“I gotta go. Something’s come up. The satellite receiver came across something,” Tony explained, anxious. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, OK? Enjoy your dinner.”

Steve seemed like he wanted to say something, but Tony didn’t give him any more opportunity to, rattling off his explanation and a hurried goodbye. If Tony’d turned around then for a last look at his teammate, he would have seen disquiet, disappointment and despondency in the Captain’s otherwise brilliant blue eyes.


	3. What are Friends For?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said that I would only update weekly or every fortnight (on Saturdays) but since I was able to really be productive over the weekend, reaching the writing quota I set for myself, I thought I'd post something that sends our story leaping forward when it comes to these two cute dorks' relationship.
> 
> Same drill, guys; let me know of any issues or inconsistencies so I could rectify them to make the story better.
> 
> Waiting with bated breath for your comments and Kudos...  
> ____

Steve had to make several detours and create diversions last night when he surreptitiously left the Kick-off Banquet early. It was no small feat that he was able to do so without the other guests noticing.

He couldn’t deny that he was quite disappointed when Tony bailed out on dinner after his short speech because ‘something’s come up’. Like, really—how vague could the man get?! Steve supposed it must have been something about Dr. Banner. Steve could sense a certain degree of despair to Tony, hearing the latter talk about what he’s been doing by way of search efforts.

Even in their early days as a budding team, there had always been an effortless connection between Tony and Bruce—maybe, Steve supposed it was their shared passion for science or the fact that they were the two smartest people on the planet, but Steve had always noticed. Now more than ever—after having seen Tony’s absolute preoccupation with finding the doctor.

Remembering Tony’s cryptic response about his participation in this charity cruise/island retreat, Steve realized that Dr. Bruce Banner might have something to do with why the billionaire was even here aboard the _Sparkle of Valor_. They were, after all, going towards the general area where Tony’s stealth quinjet hijacked by the Hulk was believed to have been last detected.

Yet again, Steve thought of Bucky and his own efforts to look for his wayward friend.

No call came through from Jim last night, and Steve dealt with it as well as could be expected: with mixed emotions. He had to muster all his self-control to keep from calling Jim or Nat to raise hell because he was sure that the redhead assassin would not take it well. He kept his worry well stoppered. He was still troubled, though, by the fact that Bucky’s whereabouts remained unknown and yet relieved that if they couldn’t find Bucky themselves then it was possible that HYDRA wouldn’t know where to look for him also.

He and Tony were no different, in that respect. They were both missing something, but were too helpless to really do much about it. Steve was finding it hard to cope with the helplessness, and apparently, so was Tony.

To make the most of his evening, Steve curled up in bed and watched Titanic. It was a _beautiful_ movie, and he stayed up until past midnight to finish it. He loved every minute of it: from the characters, the dialogue, the story, the chemistry of the protagonists, to the music, the setting, the costumes—even the depiction of the catastrophic sinking and the heart-breaking deaths. And especially moving was Jack Dawson’s.

So this early morning, on the second day of their sea voyage, Steve found himself walking quite aimlessly around the ship, looking for Tony. He just had a sudden hankering to talk to the billionaire about Titanic, seeing as he was the one who practically shoved the movie in Steve’s face. But he was wary about asking any of the ship’s stewards as to the location of Tony’s stateroom, so he just resigned himself to walking around without any real destination.

He’d gone to the area where the telecomm antenna was located, the stern, the quarter-deck and the sun deck without any luck. Steve supposed he should start thinking about asking someone where the computer and navigation systems of the ship were located because he was ready to bet that Tony was knee-deep in cables and spare parts there—wherever the devil it was.

But he had one more area to check: the ship’s bow. After which, he told himself, if he still didn’t have any luck, he was already going to start asking around.

But it turned out that Steve didn't need to because Tony was in the bow area, hunched over a tablet, his thumbs punching the screen in rapid succession, with his dark eyebrows narrowed, creating a pinched and pained expression on his otherwise jovial face. The billionaire appeared not to have noticed Steve hovering about at all.

"So Jack died, huh?" Steve said by way of greeting, and the brunette started in surprise, nearly dropping the tablet overboard.

"Jesus Cap!" He groaned, visibly hugging the device closer to his torso in fear that it would fall in the water. "You could've given a guy _some_ warning! Don't startle me like that! The last person who did that very nearly had his head repulsored to oblivion."

"Sorry. It's just that I've been looking for you all morning."

"Why?"

"I wanted someone to talk to about Titanic," Steve unabashedly confessed.

"Ha! _So_... How did you find it? Good? Depressing?" Tony asked, reverting his head back to stare at the screen of the tablet again.

“The movie was amazing, but Jack’s death was horrible,” Steve opined, leaning forward to plant his elbows on the railing. “I think they could’ve fit on that floating door, if Rose only scooted over or something.”

“Says you and the rest of the Leonardo DiCaprio-loving world,” piped up Tony, briefly looking up from the tablet’s screen to roll his eyes at Steve. “But I saw the interviews, and according to the director, James Cameron, Jack had to die ‘to make more impact on Rose’s life—to symbolize her transition from the girl she used to be to the woman she would become,’” Tony explained, making quotation signs in the air. “Personally, the first time I saw that scene, I thought Jack was barking. He should’ve just pushed Rose’s fat ass off the door and saved himself. They only just _met_ , after all. For all they know, the relationship would not have lasted anyway,” the billionaire continued, scoffing.

“But…” Steve prompted, feeling like there was more to Tony’s opinion.

Tony looked at him, quizzically. “What makes you think there’s a ‘but’ to what I just said?”

Steve shrugged, noticing the mischievous twinkle to the genius-billionaire’s brown eyes. “Wild guess… So there’s no ‘but’?”

“Oh there is, there is. Obviously, I’ve developed a form of _sentimentality_ in my old age.” Tony tucked the tablet under his arm and, facing Steve, finally awarded the blonde his undivided attention. “ _But_ if it were, say… Pepper or Happy or any of you guys in the team, I’d’ve done as Jack did.” Tony said, simply—unpretentiously, without any of his usual bravado and flirtatious humor.

“See I _knew_ that,” Steve stated with what he knew was a lop-sided grin on his own face. “So any news on Dr. Banner? I assumed your search for him was the reason for leaving the banquet so suddenly last night.” Steve angled his head towards the brunette as the wind whipped his blonde hair into hopeless disarray.

“Something definitely triggered the satellite signal receiver, but it was weak and erratic. It can lead to nowhere; or it can lead somewhere but it'd just be a false trail, but I’m not willing to discount anything. I’ll take any leads at this point, no matter how small,” the engineer replied, distractedly raking a hand through his wind-tousled dark brown-black hair.

Steve tracked the progression of that gesture with his eyes without meaning to.

He’d never admitted it before. To anyone. But he actually thought Tony was quite intimidating. Because while Steve always considered himself socially awkward, Tony always seemed so confident. Steve was too serious for his own good, but Tony was witty with his well-timed and well-delivered quips. Steve was introspective, aloof and strict—what made for a good leader and battlefield tactician—Tony, on the other hand, while also aloof at times—if the past six months were anything to go by—could quickly transform into a jovial, playful and carefree character as fast as he could swipe his credit card. Everybody either loved Tony Stark or loved to hate him, but in any case, everyone always seemed to have an opinion about the self-proclaimed genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

 _And_ Tony was roguishly attractive to boot.

Yesterday evening, when they’d run into each other at the stairwell before the Kick-off Banquet, Steve was again given a taste of Tony Stark’s animal magnetism and impeccable taste. The shirt that Tony had been wearing then looked positively _criminal_ on him that Steve was momentarily blown away.

Steve knew he looked good as well—his physique had definitely improved a thousand-fold after Project Rebirth—but there was still that something extra, _something special_ , about the way Tony Stark wore his clothes that Steve couldn’t help but admire.

Even Sam had made references to Tony Stark’s charisma on several occasions. “If I had even just a _pinch_ of Stark’s charm, I’d be on dates every damn night,” Sam would always say. “I don’t know if it’s the credit line, the smarts or the looks… Man’s like a well-oiled girl-attracting machine—even _guys_ lust after him! And losers like us? Well—we just stand in the sidelines, in the shadow of his awesomeness, hopelessly wondering how the hell he does it,” said Sam with undisguised envy when, one time, he had eavesdropped on a group of interns queuing in the Avengers facility cafeteria and absolutely _gushing_ about Tony Stark, who had just visited that same day, fixed a juicer, traipsed around the facility, looking all dashing and charming.

“About that, Cap. I feel like an ass, ditching you like that in the banquet last night.”

“Don’t worry about it. Finding Dr. Banner comes first. Besides, I’m sure you’ve already had your fill of welcoming dinners, opening feasts, and kick-offs, it’s not like you missed out on much,” said Steve dismissively. Tony didn’t need to know that he was miffed for about ten minutes before he was able to put himself to rights and plan an early escape to watch Titanic.

"I didn't stay long also. I was...uh...hoping to receive an important call," Steve assured the other man.

"News about Barnes, right?" Tony asked, absent-mindedly staring at the tablet's screen anew.

"Listen Tony—about what I was trying to tell you last night—"

"Don't sweat it. What you do to try to find your friend is nobody's business. Not even mine. I'm not calling you out on it. I mean—what do I know about moving oceans and mountains to try to find someone who didn't want to want to be found, right?" The billionaire asked, pursing his lips.

Steve didn't know if Tony had any idea that it was his close friend James Rhodes who was trying to find Bucky. He wasn't sure how Tony would take it: that Steve was possibly putting Tony's friend in harm's way just to find Bucky.

"It's Jim who's trying to tail him. It was his call I was waiting for last night."

Sometimes, Tony Stark was easy to read. Like an open book of nursery rhymes. But now, it was difficult for Steve to gauge what the other man was thinking.

"Rhodey's already a big boy. He can bloody well take care of himself," Tony finally said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"You're not going to chastise me for using Avengers resources for my personal affairs?" He couldn't believe that Tony was letting him off easy. He wasn't even the least bit sarcastic.

"Hey, _you're_ the team's Commander. And Rhodey's now an Avenger. If his commander gives him a job—tells him to stay on top of it, then he damn well better be on top of it. Straddling it. Or underneath it, shuddering against it. Or just fucking _all over it_ , is what I'm sayin'," Tony joked with a naughty smirk, obviously enjoying Steve's pained expression.

“Do. Not. Sweat it, Cap...” Tony insisted, jovially. “Tell you what…we evidently need to take vacationing more seriously plus I need to make it up to you. So, why don't we go to the Fellowship Night later in the Grand Ballroom: booze, karaoke, drunken dancing, maybe a raffle or two? I’ll even shut my phone and my tablet for good measure. How about it?” Tony asked, wiggling his dark eyebrows playfully.

Steve laughed and with very little in the way of resistance, nodded. “Sure. I’m here to relax and have fun after all.”

“That’s the spirit! We’ll make a party animal out of you yet,” Tony crowed, beaming.

Steve would have only been too happy trailing after Tony for the rest of the day, but the billionaire saw it fit to park the Captain in the ship’s enormous library before vanishing to parts unknown to chase after his too-erratic gamma ray trail. “You won’t like this part. It’ll bore you to tears. Trust me when I say that you’re better off here. I’ll find you later. In the meantime, stay away from the pool or the Jacuzzi or you might get the urge to take your shirt off and cause a ship-wide alarm! Have fun bookworming, Cap!” Tony had said with an accompanying good-natured wave.

Six hours, four books, a hurried lunch of three sub sandwiches, two Cokes and four bananas, fourteen selfies, three autographs, one indecent proposal, two lattes, and three circuits of the entire cruise ship later, Steve found himself in the promenade deck in possession of several loose sheets of paper and a pencil, drawing a dog splayed beside a lounge chair and wondering where Tony could possibly be.

This trip, far from relaxing him, was actually making him more anxious. He didn’t like being alone in the midst of many people; he didn’t like having all this time to himself and to his thoughts; he didn’t like being so disconnected from the team. He was about to crumple the paper into a tight ball when a shadow blocked his light.

“How about if you draw me like one of your French girls, Jack?” Tony piped up, looking down on Steve’s handiwork with his hands stuffed in the back pockets of his jeans. “Or one of your _German shepherds_ —take your pick, I’m not choosy.”

Steve mildly shook his head, a ghost of a smile breaking on his face. "Witty," Steve observed, injecting sarcasm in his amused voice. “Done with your sciencing?”

“Yup. _Epic fail_. The trail was too weak. What about you? Keeping busy taking selfies with a group of boarding school teenagers?”

“How did—“

Tony laughed mellifluously. “I sorta bumped into them in the hallway outside of my stateroom. I heard them talking about _Captain America_ in their screechy voices and half-squeals; I thought you might have flashed them or something with their level of excitement,” he answered, dramatically plopping down on the lounge chair beside Steve’s and languorously stretching his arms above his head like a cat.

"Listen, I've been running around the ship all day, and I was even up to my neck in motor oil at some point. I feel absolutely filthy; Imma need a long, hot, vigorous shower. So I'll just meet you in the Grand Ballroom around 7 later, if that's alright with you?"

It took Steve nearly all of his self-control to swallow the reply he was sorely tempted to say. It would've had something to do with the 'long, hot, vigorous shower' statement and his talent for giving good back scrubs. But as he completely sucked at flirting as Natasha had pointed out quite bluntly on numerous occasions, he restrained himself. Besides, he didn't even know how that was going to go down with Tony. The engineer was the last person that Steve wanted to challenge when it came to the art of flirting. He'd seen people who were adept at flirting go down in flames in the face of that Stark charm, silver tongue and wit. He wasn't going to start a game he had no hope of winning.

Sass, he could do. But flirting was not part of his skill set.

"No problem, Tony," Steve said without any embellishments.

"Okie-dokey, I'll see you later. You can introduce me to the new members of your fan club. Wilson will be _thrilled_ ," Tony teased with a sneaky wink before standing up and sauntering off in his signature Tony Stark strut.

Steve stayed in the promenade deck until sundown, watching the colors explode in one of the most magical sunsets he'd ever seen. At past six, Steve returned to his cabin for a quick shower and a change of clothes, and at fifteen minutes before seven, he was already lurking in the hallways adjacent to the Grand Ballroom, waiting for Tony.

But seven o'clock came and went with no Tony. Steve didn't know if another emergency had cropped up to keep the engineer occupied. Restless, mildly annoyed and deeply curious, Steve left the vicinity of the Grand Ballroom at around nine o'clock. He had already lost his appetite anyway.

He had no right to feel angry or irritated. It wasn't as if he was not used to being ignored by Tony Stark—he'd had six months' worth of experience at that. But he couldn't help feeling like a second fiddle friend—that between him and Bruce, Tony was always, _always_ going to put Bruce first.

Bruce knew about Tony's struggle with the Mandarin; Bruce had been in the loop in the creation of Ultron and even Vision! And both times, Steve had stood to the side, not quite getting the reference.

Steve was never going to be Tony's first choice. Not even when they were the only two Avengers in a ship full of strangers and casual acquaintances in the middle of the damn ocean!

The Captain knew it was wrong to resent Bruce or Tony and their closeness. But he couldn't stop the envy and the burning curiosity making him literally seethe as he strode back to his cabin.

Envy—because he had that kind of friendship and affinity before. With Bucky. But now, Bucky was lost to him, in more ways than one. Steve knew in his heart, though, that if he were in Tony's place, he'd be putting everyone else in the backseat for Bucky also...

And curiosity—because while they didn't start their friendship in the conventional way, he had begun to consider Tony a friend. A friend he was most interested to be closer to, but Tony had no such similar interest. Why? Why could Tony not see that Steve was just as much his friend as Bruce was?

Because Steve was _not_ Bruce—Steve couldn't talk science to Tony; he couldn't even understand half of Tony's jokes and references; Steve was too serious, too old-fashioned to understand Tony.

Stopping in his tracks, Steve huffed, not with exhaustion but with frustration. Vowing to seek Tony out before the night was over, he turned on his heels to look for a steward who could tell him where Stark's stateroom was.

He wasn't Bruce, sure. He had never aspired to be Bruce or be what the good doctor was to Tony. He could only be himself. He needed to make Tony realize that. He needed to make Tony understand that they had each other's backs on the battlefield. And off it.

Because Steve had already lost so many friends in this unusual life, he'd rather not lose one more.

###

Waking to the taste of something positively vile in his mouth, Tony rubbed sleep and residual intoxication from his eyes with the pads of his hands. How the fuck did he haul himself to the bed?

The last thing he could remember was curling up in a hurting ball of flesh in the bathtub, choking back frustrated screams.

Nearly eight weeks of nothing but curt, work-related calls and Pepper chose last night to tell him what he had been dreading to hear and yet had probably known for a long time now: that they were done.

In hindsight, maybe it was masochistic of Tony to ask how they were. Maybe he shouldn't have picked on that scab before it was well and truly healed. Yet he knew that if he hadn't asked, Pepper would've brought it up herself, one way or another.

She apologized for the things she had said way back when, said that she was getting her stuff and moving out of the Tower to move back in her Malibu townhouse.

The casual 'how are we, Pep?' turned into a long and serious talk, both of them apologizing that they couldn't make it work, and that they couldn't have talked about this in person and instead had to hash it out over the phone. The call ended on a somber note with Pepper telling Tony that there might be something about them in the news soon because she had gone out to dinner with someone. It was nothing serious, but they both knew how the press could be. Their goodbyes were still laced with deep affection, with Pepper telling him that she would probably always love him...just _differently_.

It was a minute after they'd disconnected the call that Tony lost the remaining hold on his emotions. He remembered thrashing his room, taking a bottle of bourbon to the bathroom, curling up on the bathtub and practically funneling the liquor down his throat to quench the pain.

But there were no tears, funny enough. There was pain, sure. Lots of it. Tons. But there were no tears. He had loved Pepper so deeply and truly, but he'd had quite a long time to marinate where their relationship really stood in the aftermath of that epic row following the incident in Sokovia.

It was as if he had already accepted and moved on from the break-up before there even was one. Now there was just relief and emptiness...

"Are you hungry?" A disembodied male voice intoned from the vicinity of the foot of his bed, and for a moment there, Tony's hope soared that Bruce had returned, sensing that Tony needed someone to give him some perspective over the shit situation he was currently in.

But it wasn't Bruce, noting the tall and muscular silhouette against the brightness of his stateroom windows. It was Steve.

"Shit, shit, shit…” Tony groaned, no longer mindful of Steve’s delicate sensibilities that were completely opposed to swearing. “How did you know where to find me?” The engineer asked, sitting up, squinting and then kneading his right temple with a finger. He wanted to spoon his brains out—that was how much his head was hurting. Fuck the bourbon…

“I intimidated the information out of a very nervous steward that I cornered on C-deck,” Steve replied with a straight face. “How about thirsty? Are you thirsty?”

“Oh God, you’re being _nice_ to me. Is this part of your strategy? Because _I_ think that you decided to _hunt_ me down to punch the living daylights out of me for ditching you— _again_ …” wheezed Tony. His throat felt so dry; his saliva felt like it had the consistency of sand.

“That _was_ the plan. But then as soon as I was in front of your stateroom door, FRIDAY informed me that you’d thrashed your room, and promptly passed out in the bathtub after polishing off an entire bottle of bourbon, so I had to regroup,” Steve explained. “Are you sure you’re not thirsty or hungry?”

"I want a sledgehammer to beat my head with," Tony muttered, lying down in bed anew. "No wonder she broke up with me. I'm a shitty human being," continued Tony. He hissed when he realized his slip of the tongue.

Stealing a surreptitious glance at Steve for the latter's reaction, Tony dreaded to see and hear the pity in the Captain's baby blues and in his usually commanding voice. Steve was one of the last people Tony had imagined baring his innards to. They may be allies and teammates, but they were hardly confidants.

However, if he didn't vocalize his emotions, like, in the next thirty seconds, he was going to completely lose it. This was another downside to the prolonged lack of significant human interaction. So... _Fuck it!_ He was doing this. Steve can lose a couple more notches of whatever esteem he still had for Tony, for all he cared!

Before Tony could say anything more, Steve asked, "you and Ms. Potts broke up?"

"Yeah."

"This was last night? Over the _phone_?!" Steve stood up from the recliner by the stateroom windows and, leaning against the ornate wooden armoire, crossed his arms over his expansive chest, looking for all the world like he wanted to appear smaller than his actual size.

"It's been a crappy couple hours. We only talked about it last night, but we've been up in the air since right after the incident in Sokovia, when we had a major scream fest. She chewed my ass and walked out on me then," admitted Tony.

"I don't understand. The day you went to the facility upstate to send Thor off, you said you were tapping out; you were thinking of buying Ms. Potts a farm..." The blonde pinched his lower lip between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand.

"In point of fact, by that time, I actually hadn't seen or talked to her for about a month."

"Why didn't you say anything? What about Jim—did he know?" Steve kept on questioning, seeming to want to genuinely understand what was happening. After all, his teammate had just thrashed a stateroom and gorged on bourbon like a marathoner needed oxygen. Curiosity was anybody’s natural response.

"No," answered Tony with a sniff. "Rhodey was busy transitioning from the armed forces to the Avengers, I didn't want to involve him. Besides, he was only going to blame me and accuse me of being the one who fucked everything up. _And_ he wouldn't be wrong," said Tony, violently tossing the constricting blankets off his body and sitting up again.

To be absolutely truthful, Tony didn’t really know what to do with himself now. He wanted to get the hell off that floater, fly back to the States and stare Pepper down until they’ve worked out their differences. But a part of him recognized that it was too fucking late to salvage anything. Maybe if they’d locked themselves up in a room for a week within 24 hours of that nasty fight they’d had, they could’ve saved their relationship. But Tony was too distracted, picking up the pieces of his messianic handiwork and Pepper was too in-denial for them to come to terms with what they’ve been steadily spiraling towards: their estrangement.

Goddamn, where was Bruce when Tony needed him?! Although the engineer always ended up doing what the hell he wanted anyway, the mild-mannered scientist had been known to consistently put things in perspective for Tony. While there had been hits and misses (read, Vision and Ultron) when it came to Bruce Banner-guided Tony Stark decision-making, what was constant was that Tony never went without Bruce’s voice of reason.

Until recently.

The former soldier breathed deeply and opened his mouth to say something—most likely to tell Tony off for keeping it quiet from them, or for being an insensitive jerk for hurting the woman that was the best thing to have happened in his pathetic life, or for just any number of his usual character flaws, so Tony headed him off. “Right now, you’re probably thinking I should get my ass off this ship, go to Pepper, straighten things out with her, and apologize, aren’t you?” The engineer preempted, planting his elbows on his knees, orienting himself forward to keep his vision from spinning and kneading his eyelid with the pad of his hand.

Tony bit the corner of his lower lip and stared at the Captain through a curtain of his thick, dark eyebrows. Indubitably, that was what Steve Rogers was thinking; the guy probably never had to entertain a self-centered thought his entire life!

Tony was familiar with how the Captain operated. Steve has an unyielding moral compass that always pointed due north. He didn’t have one single self-centered, self-preservatory bone in his entire body. Tony was certain that Steve was going to tell him to fly back to Pepper, confront things head-on—because something like this was not meant to be hashed out over the phone, fix the relationship with her and be man enough to admit his shortcomings and promise the sun and moon as reparation.

But right now, Tony really believed that he would be at his most altruistic if he just let Pepper go and move on. He was entitled to some wound-licking and ego-stroking. And if Bruce were here, Tony was sure to get it with a gentle pat on the head and a cooing of ‘there, there’.

“No,” the Captain quietly replied, sitting down next to Tony on the bed. The blonde remained inscrutable. “That’s not what I’m thinking at all.”

“Oh _come on_! Of course that’s what you’re thinking! If you’re in my place, I’m sure that’s exactly what you’d do—when has _Captain America_ ever put himself first before the welfare of others? Give me _one instance_ when you had entertained even a smidgen of a selfish thought in that head of yours… go on…” Tony dared, looking sideways at Steve and raking a hand through the side of his head.

“I’m being selfish now,” Steve muttered, casting his eyes down as if ashamed of what was coming out of his mouth. “I don’t want you to go and confront Ms. Potts. I want you to stay aboard the ship,” the blonde admitted to Tony’s astonishment. OK—Tony wasn't quite expecting that, and the gobsmacked look on his face was a dead giveaway.

"We've never really done this before, have we? I mean, obviously, we've known each other for a while now but we've never just...hung out and gotten to know each other," Steve explained, filling in the stifling silence. "I would very much like it if we could get to know each other, Tony.” Steve stole another sheepish glance and a shrug at the engineer, and then added as an afterthought, “ _plus_ , I don't exactly know anyone else on this ship apart from you. So your staying is definitely a win-win situation."

Tony huffed in amusement, pursing his lips. What exactly could he say in response to that?

“So how about it, Stark? Think you can grit your teeth, take the high ground and not abandon a comrade in need here?” Steve joked, which Tony didn’t think for one second the blonde was capable of.

“Let it not be said that Tony Stark is a shitty friend,” Tony exclaimed with a lopsided grin.

And Steve, bumping a knee against Tony’s leg, smiled as serenely as Tony had never seen him smile before, and stood up from the bed with a reassuring squeeze to Tony’s shoulder. “Pull yourself together, Your Awesomeness. I heard from the PA system that we’re docking in Baime in a little over an hour.”


	4. Stalkers and Rebounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone from Tony's distant past makes an appearance, and whoever said Captain America cannot lie needs to reassess their lives...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chappie... Need to feel your love, guys!!! Keep those comments and Kudos coming please. Let me know of any issues, a'ight?
> 
> Here we go...

“I don’t see what the fuss is about. It’s just like any rock in the middle of a pretty big pond,” Tony said, snorting, turning this way and that while walking along the wood and stone docks after having disembarked from the cruise ship. Looking around with a half-bored expression on his otherwise striking face, the genius bore what seemed to be a suit carrier bag higher up his shoulder while he dragged a wheeled buggy with a harebrained contraption strapped on top of it.

“Then if it’s so ordinary, why did you have to construct a high-end resort and casino on it?” Steve asked with a slight shake of his head. He, himself, hitched his duffel more snugly on his shoulder to keep it from flopping around, hitting passers-by. “Figures that instead of bringing _clothes_ to an island getaway, _you_ ’d be carting around _equipment_ ,” the blonde nodded towards the buggy that the engineer was dragging behind him.

“Clothes are so plebeian. Besides, _nude sunbathing_ —duh!” Tony replied with a slight eye roll and a flirty wave to a throng of admirers who were obviously just lounging about the harbor, waiting to get a glimpse of the celebrities walking off the gangplank.

"And it's so warm, too. Clothing is most definitely optional," continued Tony. "Hey, you wanna grab something to eat first in the lobby café? I haven't eaten anything since breakfast yesterday; I'm practically keeling over with hunger." Tony tentatively invited the other man as if already readying himself to be let down.

“Sure.” Steve assented with a curt nod, splaying his arm forward to signal for Tony to lead the way.

Steve, for the first time since the trip began, was actually excited. He stayed half a step behind Tony, furtively looking around in poorly-concealed interest with a ghost of a smile gracing his boyish face.

The Isles of Baime was like a cross between a virgin, tropical paradise—with a stout mountain rising proud against bright blue skies, lush greenery, powdery white sand shores and blinding blue-green waters in the cove, sheer cliffs of gray-white rock with jagged boulders at their feet—and an exclusive and ridiculously-expensive country club and health spa, or at least, Tony’s place was—with picturesque Cycladic-Modern Japanese architecture on the main building and the annexes of uniform white-washed walls, natural pale stone pathways, red brick and redwood decorative accents, clean corners, tall crystal windows, minimalist furniture, pockets of ornamental landscaping, both indoors and outdoors, that looked natural and yet contrived in their placement and design.

Though the place was crawling with people, the area was designed so well that Steve hardly noticed the others sharing the same space. Stealing a glance at the supposed owner of the establishment, Steve found that Tony was quietly impressed by the whole set-up, nodding and half-grinning at intervals.

After quickly disposing of their burden with the help of the friendly staff who were only too happy to be at the beck and call of their ‘Boss’, the two superheroes-turned-island vacationers trooped to the café and appropriated a corner booth to themselves for Tony to pig out on marinara pasta, cheese bread, milkshake and buckets of scalding, unapologetic black coffee in relative seclusion. Steve, who realized that he had not eaten last night because he decided to look for Tony, also ordered 2 helpings of fish and chips, iced tea and a big bowl of homemade strawberry yogurt.

It was while Tony was absent-mindedly chewing while looking off into space that Steve was drawn to study the brunette again. The ex-army never consciously noticed it before, but Tony had a deep-seated sadness ensconced in weariness in his puppy dog brown eyes. He may have been dismissive about it—didn’t want to call attention to how much it rocked him to his very foundations, but the collapse of his relationship with Pepper Potts visibly affected him. And though the last thing that Tony wanted from Steve was the latter’s pity, Steve couldn’t help but feel bad for the other man. Tony wasn’t even through blaming himself for the tragedy that was Ultron and Sokovia; he’s had to lose such vital parts of his life ever since: JARVIS, Bruce, Pepper, being an Avenger… Although the last one was Tony’s choice, still, Steve had to hand it to Tony for keeping himself together for as well and as long as he did. The Captain guessed it was another testament to the hidden strength that Tony Stark had that no one seemed to want to give him that much credit for.

That was why Steve just jumped in headfirst when Tony dared him if he’d ever had a selfish thought in his life. On hindsight, it sounded cheesy as all-hell. Much like his initial tirade about Tony’s six-month snobbery. But he threw caution to the wind and forged ahead. Because he meant to say those exact same words. That was the very reason that Steve had sought out Tony to begin with. To pound into the other man until it sunk in that while Steve was not—was never—going to be Bruce, Steve was, nevertheless, Tony’s friend on and off the battlefield. If they could share near-death experiences saving the world, they could spend a normal week together and be all the better buddies for it. Tony needed it, although Steve was sure the engineer would never admit it; and Steve, for all his efforts to stifle his stress over looking for Bucky and training the New Avengers, knew he needed it, too.

“This is a really swell place, Tony. I have to hand it to your people. They sure know how to build a world-class investment,” Steve complimented, swallowing a gulp of iced tea. He was sure that a look of child-like awe was clearly plastered on his face.

However, unprepared for the wistful and undisguised melancholy on Tony’s, Steve grimaced inwardly and started chewing the insides of his cheek. It pained Steve to no end to have to be the one to see Tony like this, when Tony was clearly all sorts of uncomfortable being this vulnerable before Steve.

But Steve just kept on telling himself that this was another hurdle they were going to have to overcome as friends: _true_ friends, _real_ friends…and not just two people who, for lack of a better term to describe whatever their complicated association was, merely _settled_ on using the word ‘friends’.

“This is probably all Pepper’s doing. She’s always had the eye for what’s aesthetically pleasing.” Tony tried covering the pained expression on his face by wiping his mouth on a table napkin.

It was then that their attention was commanded by a news report that was airing on the many television monitors mounted all around the café. It was footage of Pepper Potts leaving a Parisian restaurant with a media-darling diplomat. And the report was headlined: POTTS OUT TO DINNER WITH FERELLI. IRON MAN AND STARK CEO POTTS CALL IT QUITS?

“Well, she did give me a fourteen-hour heads-up.” Tony feebly shrugged with a cheerless smile. “There’s no need to be so cautious with me, you know; I’m not gonna break,” he reminded, sensing the unease in Steve’s manner.

“I know that, but you’re also not stone-cold and heartless. We all need some sort of interval to recover from one stressful episode to the next. Even computers have turnaround time, don’t they?” Steve crossed his legs at the ankles under the table and clasped his hands against his abdomen.

Tony actually laughed at that, endearing crow’s feet blooming at the corners of his eyes. Steve smiled as well, glad that he finally elicited a reaction from Tony that was reminiscent of the latter’s playful nature.

“Touché,” assented Tony, chortling into his tall glass of milkshake.

They began to discuss the recent training regimen of the New Avengers as well as the current political climate that the Initiative had to contend with, what with the ongoing discussion about The Accords—falling into the easy camaraderie that characterized their relationship as the team’s focal points.

It was Natasha who once said that while Steve was the brain of the Avengers: the one who formulates their attack plans and battle strategies, it was Tony who was the heart: the glue that keeps them together—as he was the force behind keeping the Avengers together after the fall of SHIELD—and invents stuff that keeps them safe and has them fighting in their absolute best.

And Steve secretly agreed with her. It had been difficult without Tony. Natasha was indispensable, whipping the new recruits into shape and just generally keeping everyone on point. Sam was getting there, finding his confidence to make split-second decisions on the field of battle. Vision was awesome at the technological stuff also—much like a less lippy Tony—but he tended to second-guess himself when it came to decisions that involved more complex human emotions. Jim was much like Steve—a tactician, more comfortable with following orders rather than being spontaneous. Wanda was still in the throes of grieving for her brother that, though eager to learn and give as good as she got, she was not the type to make the hard calls.

He had never acknowledged it before, but the team really lost something vital when Tony decided to call it quits. The team needed Tony. _He_ needed Tony. But as it was Tony’s decision to leave active duty, Steve didn’t want to look like he didn’t know how to respect another’s decision. So even though he was burning to try to talk Tony’s ear off into coming back, he restrained himself from doing so. Tony wanted out; Steve sure could respect that. Steve bloody well didn’t agree with it, but he could respect it.

Tony was in the middle of giving suggestions when it came to Falcon and War Machine’s flight simulations when Steve noticed a woman avidly staring at them at his eleven o’clock, seated alone in one of the booths. The Captain let Tony go on with his less-English-more-science elaborations, preferring to study the woman from out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t look like a threat. But then so did Natasha and she was actually the deadliest of all of them.

“Don’t look now, but there’s a woman at your five o’clock that’s been staring at you for a good ten minutes now,” Steve murmured from the top of his glass of iced tea. “Don’t turn, don’t turn...” He reprimanded Tony, who was in the process of turning his head to see what Steve was on about.

“Are you sure she’s staring at _me_ and not at you?”

“I don't know her from Adam so why would she be staring at me?” Steve scrunched his eyebrows in question. “No, I’m pretty sure she’s staring at you.”

“What does she look like? Maybe it’s a... a reporter—or something...”

“She has long dirty blonde hair, longish face, pointed nose, sallow skin and glum gray eyes, very thin eyebrows. And thin... like a... a—“

“Praying mantis-thin?” Tony prompted.

“Well—not exactly the first thing that came to my mind, but yeah... She’s _very_ thin—like anorexic-thin,” continued Steve, flicking his observant blue eyes towards and away from the woman in question so as not to attract her notice that she was also being watched.

“I think I know who it is...”

“Don’t make sudden movements. She’s on her feet and on the move. If she tries anything funny, I will engage and you get to the nearest exit,” Steve muttered, instantly alert and ready to pounce like the trained combatant that he was.

Tony gave him a casual kick under the table as the girl stopped by their table with eyes only for the billionaire. “Tony Stark... I’d such high hopes that I might see you here,” the thin lady practically purred, quite unattractively, too. To Steve, it was as if a plank of wood was trying to pass itself off as a cat. Steve let up on his initial planned response but kept vigilant, nevertheless, in case the girl tried anything.

“Hello Heather! Fancy running into you here! Aren’t you supposed to be in some medical facility getting drugged to your eyeballs?” Tony greeted brazenly, making a scene of nearly spewing his mouthful of milkshake in mock surprise.

“I got a clean bill of health four months ago. I flew here in my private jet, hoping I'd see you. I must say—you’re looking quite well for someone who’d very nearly and single-handedly caused world annihilation.” The girl that Tony called Heather actually preened, languidly moving closer and closer to Tony with every word.

“Aww, you heard about that all the way from the nuthouse! Would you look at that?!”

“That’s not the only thing I heard from the little birdies,” Heather murmured, batting her dead-looking eyes at Tony. Then turning to Steve, as if seeing him for the first time, scowled and flipped her lank-looking hair at Tony again. “I need to speak to you. Alone. If you don’t mind.”

“As it happens, I _do_ mind,” Tony retorted, the first seeds of panic visible in his honey-gold eyes.

“I have a business proposition for you. It won’t take long. Trust me when I say that you’ll want to hear it,” Heather cooed, trailing her bird-like fingers down Tony’s forearms that were resting on the arm of his chair.

Heather walked away but turned a bit to check that Tony was following. And the latter, before standing up to follow the woman, mouthed to Steve with wide-eyed horror, “keep your eyes on us and make sure she doesn’t do anything funny. If she does, kick her ass and I'll vouch for you!”

Tony and Heather went to another secluded corner and talked in murmured voices, but it was quite obvious to Steve that Tony was very uncomfortable and couldn’t wait to get out of the eerie-looking woman’s reaching distance. Steve kept on watching as Tony’s expression changed from uneasy, to mildly disgusted, to appalled, to positively horrified, all in the span of several minutes while the girl delivered her so-called business proposition. It looked like it took all of Tony’s wiles to get the girl to back away and let him leave.

Signaling to Steve that they should make themselves scarce as soon as possible, the Captain snappily stood up and followed in Tony’s wake. Steve had never seen Tony look so eager to be rid of someone as much as he did then.

“Who _was_ that?” Steve turned to check the restaurant’s doorway if the woman followed them out, but there was no sign of Heather.

“Heather Devigne. She’s a West coast canning industry heiress who’s absolutely _obsessed_ with me,” replied Tony, still perceptibly trying to shake off the residual disgust from the encounter.

“What did she want?” Steve kept abreast with Tony as the latter weaved through the throngs of people like he was trying to shake off a persistent tail.

“She offered her services to fill the position vacated by Pepper,” responded Tony with a shudder. “Or something to that effect. There was definitely mention of the words positions, filling... me filling something of hers and just _crass obscenities_.” At this, Tony faced Steve and grimacing, bared his teeth in disbelief. “I think she might have broken me—my genius mind will be forever tainted by those... _positively perverse_ mental images that I don’t even want to think about and, honestly, you wouldn’t want to hear because your pure and virtuous spirit will... _implode_ —”

“—isn’t she a bit too young for you?” Steve good-naturedly asked.

“You sound like _I’m_ the one defiling _her_. If you’d heard her, Steve, trust me, you wouldn’t be thinking about that at all.” Tony motioned towards the reception counter for free personnel to talk to about their accommodations.

“The only reason she’s stayed off my back for this long was Pepper. Jesus, if I'd known that she would be here, I'd've told Sam Jackson to shove that invitation up where the sun don't shine," groaned Tony before clenching his jaw in dismay.

"She seemed harmless. Well—she liked you a bit _too_ much, if truth be told, but how bad can she be?" Steve piped up again when they'd received their room key cards from hotel personnel and he and Tony were alone in the elevator.

"Let me put it this way: Pepper convinced me to take out a _restraining order_ against her around six, maybe, seven years ago. She’s been in and out of rehab and psych facilities since, and now she’s _loose_ ,” Tony explained, shuddering for what seemed like the nth time. "And this is _bad_. She's probably already headed us off, and she's lurking in the hallway of my hotel room right now, preparing to pounce on me."

Steve shook his head, amused at the other man's melodrama. "I've got your back, Tony. She won't be getting anywhere near you if it's the last thing I do."

"Yeah?" Tony cajoled with a small smile through his pursed lips.

"Yeah," Steve reassured with a toothy smile of his own.

###

Knocking persistently while checking left and right in the deserted hallway for the nutcase that was Heather Devigne, Tony hated his paranoia. But he wasn't exaggerating when he'd told the Captain that Heather was insanely enamored with him that it came to a point that Pepper really feared for his safety, so much so that a restraining order was taken out and four security detail plus Happy kept their eyes on him.

Many, many nutcases had it in for Tony Stark, but Heather was in a league of her own. It wasn't just that she had a few screws loose. But the whole fucking toolbox was gone!

And without the comfort of being in a loving and exclusive relationship with a sane human being who had a battery lawyers on speed dial, Tony was like a sitting duck and it was open season for Heather Devigne!

The Captain opened the door to his hotel room, mildly annoyed and startled. "Tony? What are you doing here?"

"Why are you not dressed yet?" Tony took in the low-riding gray lounge pants and tight threadbare white tee that the blonde was wearing.

"Huh? Dressed for what?"

"Can't we at least hash this out inside? I feel vulnerable standing out here. There are plenty of niches here to stuff one's self in and she happens to be so thin. For all we know, she's lying in wait under the floorboards," Tony rattled out in his usual hundred-words-a-minute. “Remind me to request the interior design team of this hotel for a remodel—less possible hiding places for waifs in the corridor."

Steve ushered him inside with a last minute check if there was indeed anyone in the hallway. "What's up?"

"I want to go to the activity they've scheduled for tonight. But you _have_ to come with me," Tony opened as soon as Steve had shut the door. “That nutcase-stalker of mine will most likely be there, waiting for the chance to corner me in a dark, deserted stretch of beach to despoil my virtue.”

Shaking his head with an expression that was a mixture of amused and exasperated, Steve scratched at the side of his neck. “What do you need me for when there’ll be a lot of people there?”

Tony had the audacity to pout like a petulant child. “ _You_ promised to keep Heather off my back. I know this girl, Cap. She’s not gonna be deterred from her lewd designs just ‘cause a few hundred people are around.” He hurtled around Steve’s room like a whirlwind, picking up odds and ends, inspecting them before losing interest and moving on. “Come on… It’s just a luau—you don’t need to be dressed to the nines, and you don’t even have to go _with_ me just…just keep me within screaming distance or something.” Tony turned to look at Steve every once in a while, employing his most persuasive voice. Heaven knows that Starks don’t beg, so this was going to be the closest thing to begging that Steve Rogers was ever going to get from him. But it _was_ taking a considerable amount of his wiles to get the Captain to see things his way.

“The activity tonight’s a _what_?”

“A beach luau. It’s a Hawaiian party—cocktails, bonfires, loud music, fire-eaters, general mayhem and miscellany. It’s gonna be fun.” He stole a quick glance at Steve and seeing that the latter was not exactly jumping into his party shoes, added for good measure, “I just don’t want to have to stay in my room tonight to sulk but I also refuse to be scared off by this girl I took out a restraining order against, or is it really too much to ask?” He also threw in a dash of his puppy dog eyes that Bruce had once told him was very difficult to ignore. Hey, it couldn’t hurt…

Steve drew his mouth into a thin line and sighed a little too audibly. “Fine, fine. Give me five minutes to throw on something decent.”

It took all of Tony’s restraint not to pump a fist in the air.

“So what exactly do people wear to a… a—luau?” Steve called from the vicinity of his bathroom, where, Tony presumed, he was changing into something more appropriate for a beach party.

Too bad, Tony wouldn’t have said no to some eye candy at that particular moment. And if there was a yummier, more delicious eye candy than Steve Rogers, then Tony hadn’t met them yet. “Didn’t you see what I was wearing? Just flip-flops, comfortable shirt or tank top and beach shorts is fine.”

They were off to the beach in no time, jovially talking about the merits and demerits of the place’s interior design. Tony was inwardly impressed at Steve’s comments. The man sure knew the finer points of aesthetics.

When they were already within hearing distance of the party, Steve froze in his tracks and clutched at Tony’s forearm, halting him, too. Brown eyes met blue ones that were blown wide open in fear. “Why didn’t you tell me that there would be _dancing_?!”

“It’s a _party_ , Steve; of course, there would be dancing,” Tony drawled, but noticing the abject horror in his erstwhile Commander’s face, he went on to ask, “why? What’s so bad about dancing?”

“I don’t know how to dance,” Steve hissed, raking a hand through his 21st-century-styled head of blonde hair.

“Don’t worry about it—they won’t throw you out because you can’t dance.” Tony already found himself yelling to be heard above the din of the dance music.

The luau was hopping by the time the two superheroes arrived to join the throng of revelers. There were party decorations of tall bamboo stakes at odd angles, huge fires in metal drums, silk banners and flags in all conceivable colors blowing in the fierce wind, curtains of dried palm leaves, and balloons of various shapes and sizes. The side of the party area perpendicular to the coast was devoted to a long makeshift bar made of bamboo planks where bright colored cocktails and hors d’oeuvres could be ordered. The center was for dancing and the perimeter was for mingling. The wait staff were walking around in bright-colored grass skirts, flowered bathing suits and polo shirts and flower garlands.

“I think I’ll go try to find the restroom,” Steve hollered by Tony’s ear. “Where will I find you later?”

“You’re leaving me?” Tony hated to sound like a clingy honeymooner who couldn’t get enough of his lover, but that was what he sounded like. He hoped that Steve wouldn’t notice.

“You’ll be fine. I’ll just be a moment,” came the patient reassurance.

“I’ll be at the bar then, getting a drink.” He wanted to tell Steve to hurry back, but again he didn’t want to be the nagging girlfriend.

Tony weaved through the crowd towards the bar, appropriated a vacant barstool when he got there and ordered a classic mojito with an extra shot of rum. He nursed it while nodding towards some people he was acquainted with—from SI, from his benefits gala circle, from Hollywood.

He exchanged pleasantries with a couple more people before he made the mistake of turning to the barstool on his right and finding himself face to face with Heather Devigne again, who had snuck up on him like a crazy-ass ninja in ill-fitting beach wear.

“Oh good God!" Tony groaned in dismay. "Is this gonna be a thing with you?" He plucked his mojito from the bar and downed the rest of the contents in one forceful gulp that had the rum burning a trail down his throat.

"It's amazing how the past—what—seven years hasn't done you any damage. You're still so unbelievably sexy," Heather practically screamed above the din of the party in her irritatingly breathy voice.

He wanted to plant his face on the bar and not have to deal with this. But he was afraid of exposing the back of his neck to Heather. Tony wouldn't put it past her to give it a salacious lick.

"You can butter me up all you want but I'm still not interested, Heather. You're just not my type."

"Let me change your mind. There are no holds barred with me, Tony. You can be the sexual deviant that you are with me." Now that promise, rather than excite Tony with the endless possibilities just sent his stomach turning topsy-turvy with revulsion.

"I don't think I'll be changing my mind anytime soon. I don't really know how to let you down any more gently—or bluntly—than this. I don't know what taking out another restraining order against you is going to do to your old man, so I'd really rather not consider that step again," Tony said, almost pleading. The old man Devigne, whom Tony had met a fair few times in less favorable circumstances, was really a pretty groovy guy, all things considered. Tony had to hand it to him. The old man's sense of humor was extraordinary for someone with a clusterfuck for an only daughter.

Heather pulled her barstool closer to Tony's and it was then that the latter started to seriously consider escape options. He didn't want those arms wrapped around him or _anywhere_ near him.

"Hey babe, sorry I took so long," came a baritone greeting right by his right ear. Warm, muscular arms snaked around his waist, which sent Tony shivering in a combination of unexpected thrill, relief and complete surprise.

Steve, for good measure, planted a noisy kiss on his right cheek, nearly sending Tony's van dyke into a frenzy of crackling electricity. Tony turned to look at Steve with what must be an unmistakable expression of apoplectic shock at what was happening. Steve prompted him out of his stupor by signaling towards Heather with his eyeballs.

Oh right! Heather _was_ still there...

"Steve— _babe_ —you remember Heather from this afternoon, right? Umm, Heather—this is Steve, my—" Tony introduced, hitting an unexpected snag.

Which Steve easily saved without missing a beat, "—boyfriend. I'm his boyfriend."

Huh. Tony wondered exactly when Steve got so unbelievably creative. And ballsy.

"Boyfriend." Heather seemed to be right in the middle of disbelieving every single bloody word out of them and thinking that Tony just became 250% more desirable. "I didn't know you swing that way, Tony."

"I swing _all_ kinds of ways, darling," Tony, getting his bearings back, assured with a shit-eating grin. This also happened to be the gods' honest truth.

"I see now why you were lukewarm to my proposition. You should have said something earlier.... Well... You have very good taste regardless," Heather complimented with what's left of her pride.

"Thanks," replied both Steve and Tony at the exact same time since it was unclear whose good taste it was that Heather was complimenting. At that, they looked at each other with knowing amusement.

As soon as the two were left relatively alone, Tony turned to Steve with an expression that indubitably conveyed 'what the bloody fuck was that all about?!'

"What?" Steve asked innocently.

Tony shook his head, his eyes asking for a reasonable explanation from the other man and his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "The fuck did you just pull, Rogers?!" The genius-billionaire demanded, screaming above the noise, when he had finally found his voice.

"I think that's called 'saving your hide.'" Steve countered, motioning for a bartender.

"For the record, not a very brilliant idea. If anything, she's going to be watching us more closely now to try to call us out on the ruse. I don't think you really saved me from anything," Tony commented, rolling his eyes and gesturing towards the bartender that he'd like a couple more mojitos. Or maybe it was high time to consider something much stronger for himself? Screw last night's bourbon hangover!

When his drinks arrived, Tony placed one in front of Steve and got started on his by throwing back successive gulps.

"I'm not drinking that. You know alcohol has no effect on me." Steve nodded towards the glass before him.

"I'm a genius but that's never stopped me from getting stupid ideas now and again. Same diff," Tony said, offering his mojito glass to Steve for a toast. He took a bit of comfort that this most recent stupid idea did not come from him, for a change.

Humoring Tony, Steve picked his glass up and clinked it against the billionaire's before taking an invested gulp. Grimacing, he said, "she can watch you more closely all she wants, but at least that's all she'll be doing."

"Until she discovers that we're lying, that is. Then she can freely dog my heels again," Tony retorted with a shrug. "And you can rest assured, she _will_ find out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to find out that you are not actually my boyfriend." That surprisingly left a bitter taste in Tony's mouth. He and Steve would never in a million years be able to pass themselves off as lovers even if they only had a nutcase like Heather Devigne to convince.

"We just have to convince her for the duration of our stay on the island. It should be easy." Steve was dismissive like convincing someone that he was Tony Stark's boy toy was as simple as beating the shit out of their sparring robot.

"Cap, nothing about this is easy. For starters, if I'm staying in the same hotel as my boyfriend, it makes no sense at all for us to be staying in _different_ rooms," elucidated Tony as if daring Steve to contradict him. "Trust me, we are not convincing anyone of anything as we are right now."

Tony wanted to spell it out for Steve that the Captain really didn't do shit for him. Not that he wasn't inwardly thrilled to have Captain America for a fake boyfriend for the next couple of days, but it was going to be hell to try to pull off.

Breathing a resigned sigh, Tony slammed his empty glass on the bar counter, stood up from his stool and motioned for Steve to follow suit with a jerk of his head. "Well come on."

"Where are we going?" Steve asked, recovering from nearly spewing his hurried mouthful of mojito.

"We're going to see what five years of dance lessons as a kid is worth, _boyfriend._ " Tony silently relished the pure terror on the Captain's face.


	5. Fake It 'Til You Make It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is WHAT?!?!?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we really becoming quite jaded with the imminent release of Captain America: Civil War or are there actually LESS Stony fans out there? Are they shifting to be Stucky fans or something?!?! Come on, you guys, we need to represent--not only in Ao3 but in Pinterest and Tumblr!!!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's left Kudos and comments, but I am foaming at the mouth for more!!! So make me feel your love and let me know of any issues so I can fix them, please.
> 
> This chapter was written with "Perfect" by One Direction in a loop on my laptop's iTunes.  
> ___

Resisting Tony's grip on his forearm by dragging his feet, Steve was experiencing pins and needles at the back of his neck with the very thought of dancing. With Tony. In front of all these people that he didn't know. "Tony, I thought I told you. I don't know how to dance!" Steve tried yelling above the thumping music as they inched through the dance floor crowd.

"That's what you got me for. Just follow my lead," assured the billionaire. At this, Steve felt Tony slide his grip down Steve's forearm to take hold of the latter's hand and pulled forcefully towards the center of the dance floor.

Facing Steve once they were where Tony wanted them to be, the genius-billionaire caught Steve's eye, amusement blooming on his face that was lit up by the strobe lights strung above them and the roaring bonfires in the dance floor's perimeter. "Just keep your elbows close to your torso, like so." Tony hands roamed Steve's arms to position them. Then he, himself, demonstrated the stance. "And just step from side to side to the beat of the music. Just snap to the rhythm."

Steve couldn't help but notice how natural Tony looked swaying in time with the music. He had always thought that there was such a gracefulness to the genius-billionaire, especially with the way that Iron Man flew and fought. He didn't even want to get started on the Armored Avenger's take-off and landing stance—oh wow, that landing posture is the stuff of newsreel stills and fan posters that even Steve had drawn it multiple times in his private sketchbook for posterity. But that was something he had never told anyone else. Like he had never told anyone else—nor was he planning to tell anyone else in the future—of how awed he had been of Tony Stark that first time Steve saw him land as Iron Man in Stuttgart.

"Don't worry. I'm pretty sure this is as bad as it's going to get. There won't be ballroom-dancing or slow-dancing because there's no space." Tony leaned towards him and yelled by his ear, the billionaire's breath warm against the side of Steve's neck.

Soon enough, Steve actually found himself enjoying the feeling of being awash with the thumping music. He laughed at Tony's antics of exaggerating some fancy footwork and pirouettes and doing what the genius-billionaire had termed 'spirit fingers'.

"Alright! Everyone having fun?" The evening's DJ interjected on top of the upbeat tune, and the crowd answered with an ear-splitting scream of affirmation. "How about if we mellow things down a bit and cater to the lovers and potential lovers in the crowd?" And a slow ballad replaced the erstwhile heart-pumping dance tunes. The couples on the periphery gravitated towards the dance floor, replacing the large groups of upbeat dancers around Tony and Steve, closing any avenues of possible escape for them.

So much for no slow-dancing...

"Well shit," Tony muttered, capturing their predicament quite succinctly.

Rather than look uncomfortably out of place, Tony sidled up closer to Steve, and grabbing the latter's hands, placed them on his hips. The brunette also propped his own hands on Steve's broad shoulders and began swaying slowly. "Follow my lead and just run with it," Tony mumbled, resigned but tickled, nonetheless, if his smirk was anything to go by.

Steve was momentarily out of sorts, but easily fell into step with Tony. How many times had he dreamed of dancing with Peggy, he couldn't remember anymore. But this was nothing like he had ever imagined.

Tony may have been slighter in build compared to Steve, but he was anything but delicate. The waist and hips under Steve's hands were fit and firm with solid muscle. Tony's body was enticingly warm, too. And the hands on Steve's shoulders were light but sure in their grip.

However, what entranced Steve the most were Tony's eyes. Those glowing, honey-gold depths lined with thick, dark and long lashes, made more hypnotic by the flickering bonfires around them and the strobe lights and stars above them. Steve lost all sensation of anything outside his body. There was nothing but the breath catching in his throat, the furious pumping of his heart, the tingles rushing to the base of his skull. And those beautiful eyes.

If Iron Man ever considered fighting without his face plate in the future, those eyes would surely be his most devastating weapon.

"I—I... I need..." Of course, he chose now to lose control over his faculties for coherent speech! Steve closed his eyes, feeling a furious blush coming on.

"Relax soldier. You OK?"

No. He wasn't OK. His mind was deliciously blank.

"Do you need some air?"

It was ridiculous! They were in the open, on the beach, enjoying occasional gusts of toasty sea breeze and he _needed_ air! "Yeah," was his breathless reply.

"So dancing and Captain America don't mix, huh?" Tony voiced his observation when they were already quite a ways from the party, walking along a stretch of beach towards a rocky outcropping at the base of some cliffs. They were walking barefoot on the wet sand. Every once in a while, their feet would be submerged in ankle deep sea water and foam from the waves.

"Just... Just something I'm terribly uncomfortable with."

"But you were already doing so well during the upbeat songs," pressed Tony, tugging at the string of his beach shorts absent-mindedly.

Steve could feel the blood drain from his face. He didn't really have a problem with dancing per se. It was slow-dancing with Tony that rendered him incoherent. But he would sooner go to his grave than admit it to his teammate.

"It comes and it goes, I guess. You made me laugh so much during the upbeat dances," Steve reasoned, hoping that, though one of the smartest men in the world, Tony wouldn't be so quick on the uptake this time.

"Did you really have to take dance lessons as a kid?" Steve asked to divert the conversation away from him.

Tony groaned and guffawed. "Oh yeah. It was craptastic. It was another way to keep me out of my parents' hair. Plus my mother was a sadist."

Launching into one animated story after another about his dance lessons days, Tony engaged Steve into conversation complete with bad puns, big gestures and lots of belly-aching laughter.

It was another reminder of how much Steve missed Tony. Although technically speaking, they've never just hung out like normal guys like what they were doing now, Tony's humor was pretty much constant. On comms during response incidents, during strategy briefings, debriefings or the infrequent team activities. So when Tony decided to leave and all that Steve got from him afterwards were the once-in-a-while calls of distracted how-are-yous and what-do-you-needs, he actually missed Tony. He had never consciously thought about it or vocalized it, but he did.

“Can I ask you a question, Tony?” Steve cautiously asked, wanting to steer the conversation to something more serious. And when Tony shrugged his go-ahead, Steve continued, “what do you plan on doing now that—you know—you and Ms. Potts have agreed to end your relationship?” Steve really, _really_ wanted Tony back on Avengers active duty that he couldn’t even begin to describe how badly he wanted it.

Tony shrugged again. “I don’t really know, Cap. I want to keep working on the SI projects I’m currently working on, and at the same time, I want to be out there on the field with you—with the _Avengers_. But I don’t know how much help I can still give you, with me getting on in years and everything,” snorted Tony with a slight roll of his eyes. “I really think I could be of help to you guys in the political arena, what with all the attempts from various states and political bodies to micromanage the Avengers Initiative—maybe that’s where I need to focus my energy on.”

Steve wordlessly watched his toes sink into the wet sand as a wave rushed through his and Tony’s feet. He wanted to vehemently disagree so bad that he hurt somewhere in the vicinity of his diaphragm. Maybe he should have said something that day they saw Thor off. He should have tried to change Tony’s mind then. But he just stayed quiet then. And he was staying quiet now. Had he already missed his window of opportunity? Was it too late to convince Tony that his place was among the Avengers’ ranks, fighting beside them?

“You know, _Commander_ , if you wanted me back on active duty, you could have just said so,” Tony joked, interrupting Steve’s inner— _year-long_ , really—debate by reading his mind and saying what Steve had been at-odds to even begin.

“I didn’t want you to think that I don’t know how to respect your decision,” countered Steve, grinding his foot deeper into the sand and refusing to meet Tony’s eyes.

“You should’ve said something,” Tony needled. “ _I_ was waiting for _you_ to say something,” he continued, snickering and shaking his head at their silliness. “So you _do_ want me back on Avengers active duty. _Right_?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Steve confirmed with a pained smile.

“Alright—then… I’ll think about it.” Tony cheekily grinned.

“Tony—” Steve hummed, employing his comms voice, and looked at Tony with mock disdain.

“No… But yeah—kidding aside. I didn’t leave just ‘cause I wanted to hear you guys beg to have me back, saying that it’s not the same without me, yada yada—“

“—well it’s _not_ …the same without you,” Steve quietly admitted, hoping that Tony would not read more into it. Because really, there wasn’t anything more into it. It was just a team player missing one of his more vital team players. Really

“I kinda thought I was done. And you have new kids to teach and mentor and dote on, that—you know—what need do you still have of a sarcastic, bull-headed, ‘I don’t do teamwork’ man in a can?” Tony rambled, complete with jerky gestures. “God—look at us we're walking along the beach talking about feelings." Tony huffed and turned on his heel to walk backwards, clapping the soles of his no-doubt expensive flip-flops together.

"This is actually long overdue. We needed this," Steve rationalized. "And you might doubt it but the team needs you, Tony."

Tony smiled at Steve in response, simply—without his usual grandstanding and bravado—then averted his gaze and kept on walking backwards, casting his gaze far, back to the party or to other side of the cove, maybe, but it didn't matter to Steve. What did was the way that Tony's face looked for that picture-perfect moment: beautifully content.

But Steve's reverie was shattered when, rounding a rocky protrusion, he happened upon two men in a very sexually-compromising situation. Tony was on his heels half a second behind, now walking the right way and was the one who noisily reacted, alerting the two men that they were no longer alone. "Holy sh—"

Scrambling to cover their bits and pieces, the two strangers scampered out of sight of the two superheroes with mumbled apologies and not-nearly decent enough bearings.

"You would think that since _we're_ the ones who had walked in on them and obviously interrupted something that was just getting good, we should have been the one apologizing to them," Tony commented with an unspoken 'tsk'. Turning to Steve, he checked, "you don't need to scrub your retinas or go to confession, do you?"

Steve, though caught unawares and was a bit startled by seeing something so intimate going down—bad pun—in the middle of a public beach with a party not a quarter of a mile away, was not as pure as Tony jokingly made him out to be. He had seen 'stuff', what with the Avengers facility's unrestricted access to the internet, of course he had!

And they weren't 'stuff' that he was shown by someone else—like Clint or Sam—either. He had become quite the virtuoso when it came to looking 'stuff' up on the net. And he had the metabolism and vigor of a 29-year-old. And he wasn't made of stone! Of course, he had looked 'stuff' up on the internet himself!

"I'm not as clueless as you think I am, Tony. I do know porn and I do know how to use the internet," said Steve, defensively.

"Oh I don't doubt it. But—you know—what we just saw might have been a bit too...umm...too—" Tony snap-clapped his hands in his usual way, looking for the politically-correct and Cap-acceptable terminology.

"...gay?"

"I was going to say _radical_ , but yeah—gay works, too." Tony nodded, trying to look innocent.

"I have to admit that's the first time I've ever seen anything like that in the flesh," Steve conceded, jerking his head from side to side.

Tony actually giggled. Steve realized that it was another bad pun.

They were walking back to the party when Tony froze in his steps and bored his arresting brown eyes into Steve's as if something had suddenly dawned on him. "Hang on… You said that was the first time you've seen something like that in the flesh..."

"I did," Steve agreed.

"Why did you have say that phrase?"

"What phrase?"

"You could've just said that that was the first time you've ever seen something like that. Period. Why did you have to say 'in the flesh'?" Tony asked, confounded.

"Like I said I have access to the internet, Tony, and the internet has everything," Steve explained like he would have explained child-rearing to Vision.

"Why, in the name of everything that's good and holy in the world, would you even look up _gay porn_ on the internet?" Tony asked with wide, immensely curious eyes. " _And_ even if you didn't look it up yourself and someone just casually referred it to you as a joke or by accident, why would you not shut it off and hurl your device towards the nearest wall within the first 5 milliseconds of seeing it when 5 milliseconds is all the brain needs to get a snapshot that will have triggered an instantaneous reaction similar to the fight-or-flight response, which will have saved your higher brain functions from any actual register of having seen anything that you actively reject to see—" Tony spewed a lot of science and hifalutin psychoanalysis-babble. But Steve, choking on his next inhale, actually understood what Tony was going on about and—

Oh sh—

The genius-billionaire was too damn smart for his own good and Steve just had to open his big mouth, didn't he?

"I've looked up gay porn on the internet," Steve admitted with resignation to save them both from any more of Tony's long-winded psycho-babble.

That sure shut Tony up good, alright.

"Am I... Missing something here?" Tony ventured again after a moment's utter silence.

"I look up gay porn on the internet because I'm bisexual, Tony," Steve confessed. "I'm pretty sure Natasha knows, well, because she knows everything. Clint knows because he caught me looking it up one time, but he didn't say anything to anybody else because, of all of us, he knows how to keep secrets, obviously," said Steve, intending to make a rundown of who exactly in the team knew about his orientation or didn't. "Wanda knows because her power doesn't really allow other people from hiding stuff from her. Vision knows because he can access internet browser history, easy, so there's no hiding my internet activities from him. Sam knows because I told him. And that makes you, Jim, Bruce and Thor who didn't know about it. Well... Just Jim, Bruce and Thor now..." Steve concluded his enumeration.

Tony seemed like he was battling between utter shock and vexation. He must have been shocked because he had always had this idea of Steve being this morally upstanding all-American, can-do-no-wrong, set-in-the-old ways, old man. And being bisexual didn't really fit in any of those Captain America ideals.

He must have been a tad annoyed, too, because he was in that group that was left in the dark. And no one left Tony Stark in the dark without paying through the nose for it.

"OK so I'm still kinda trying to wrap my head around the fact that I didn't know that—tidbit about you. This is not doing my self-image and the very high opinion I have of myself any favors, just so you know," mumbled Tony, obviously still pensive if not completely bothered that something that unlikely had escaped his notice. "I can't believe I know about your shower fetish for the Beach Boys but not this—"

"— _what_?!" Steve was floored for a moment. Like the ground was pulled from right underneath him. " _What_?! How did you know about _that_?!" He yelled above Tony's diatribe.

"Who do you think Nat got her audio file from? I knew she was going to use that as some form of blackmail material down the—"

"—that was _you_?!"

"Please... Like Vision is ever going to have the initiative to do—"

"—oh my God! It's a mutiny! It's... It's an invasion of the privacy of your Commanding Officer!" He must have been completely barking for wanting to have Tony Stark back in the team!

"Think about it this way: I tapped out of active duty so, technically, you weren’t the Commander of me when I did that. _Also_ , may I point out that I was mature enough to limit it to _audio_? Visual evidence for that is sacrilegious even for me," Tony reasoned with a wink after letting the Captain's rage simmer down a bit in silence.

Steve just gnashed his teeth together to tamp down the blush threatening to color his face at the mental image that his traitorous mind painted from that last statement: of Tony secretly watching him in the shower with those intense golden eyes of his tracking Steve's every move.

###

Tony _was_ a bit peeved to be told just now that Steve Rogers—Captain America, the guy he had hero-worshipped for the better part of his formative years—was _bisexual_. He wasn’t annoyed that he was left out of the loop for the longest time because, well, he wasn’t really expecting Steve to set him aside specially, look into his eyes and ‘fess up his deepest, darkest secrets. They haven’t exactly been the closest of confidants; in fact, there had always been some sort of tension lurking near the surface between the two of them.

He was annoyed because he had a rep! He was the nosiest, nothing-is-sacred, most curious, most ingenious person he knew, and for this paradigm-shifting information to have escaped his prying eyes and questionable morals when it came to weaseling out information for as long as it did was a great personal insult.

But Tony guessed that he really didn’t have anyone else to blame for that but himself. Maybe if he had not distanced himself from the team like he’d done, he wouldn’t have been so out of the loop. Maybe Steve would have even told him personally if he had been more involved or had been around more. But as it was, he was a jerk and now he had to live with the consequences. At least, Steve had already come clean to him.

That didn’t mean Tony was not at all stunned out of his mind to hear it: _Steve Rogers was bisexual_! Tony’s dad was probably turning in his grave.

“Did my dad know?” Tony suddenly broached. They had been talking about random subjects on the way back to the hotel’s main building from the beach party: the unique architectural design of _The Allegria_ , the technological innovations that Tony had been working on for SI and adjustments to the targeting systems of the quinjets, but Tony just had a hankering to know if Howard ever got wind of the chink in Captain America’s armor, so to speak.

Steve looked at him quizzically, momentarily lost in the conversation.

“Did he know that you’re bisexual?” Tony elaborated. He didn’t want to keep harping about this because Steve was evidently all shades of uncomfortable having to confess to Tony, but he was just very, very curious.

“No. Only a handful of people from…way back knew. My fellow Commandos knew but we never talked about it and, thankfully, it never affected our dynamics on the field,” explained Steve. “Peggy didn’t know, and Howard… Howard didn’t know.”

Tony huffed. “He would’ve had a coronary if he’d known. He had this image of you—pristine, blameless…perfect. He’d have cared more finding out you were bisexual than he would if he’d found out that I was, too.” And a good thing that the old man never found out about the sexual deviances of his hero/friend and his son. Because it would’ve angered Tony further if he saw his father give a shit for a stranger more than he would for his own flesh and blood.

“So that _was_ true—what you told Heather?”

“Yup,” Tony answered with dead certainty. He’d known since he was eighteen. He had never tried to hide it or be ashamed of it. It was an open secret in the media and among his business circles. Like they cared who he was fucking when he was the second richest man in the world!

The hotel lobby was deserted when they got there; everyone else was still presumably at the beach getting wasted. The two walked to the banks of elevators in relative silence, and Tony pressed the button for an elevator.

Entering an empty elevator, Tony pressed the button for his room's floor and was about to press the button for Steve's on a lower floor when Steve motioned for him to halt. "I'll walk you to your room first in case your admirer is lying in wait in the hallway."

Tony mock preened and gurgled, "awww, I have the sweetest, most valiant fake boyfriend in the world!"

Steve just shook his head with a scoff.

"Well—this is me," Tony motioned towards his room's door when they made it unmolested to his floor.

"Do you have a suite? How big is it?" Steve asked, checking the short hallway for anything that was amiss.

“Not a suite. Apparently, this hotel was designed not to have suites—just biggish rooms. I have a killer view though,” Tony described, uncertain whether he should invite Steve inside. So he just stepped up closer to the blonde and hissed to make sure that no one could eavesdrop on them, “and again, this is the part where our little ruse unravels. Because there’s no way in blue blazing hell that _I_ wouldn’t be staying in the same room as my supposed boyfriend—‘m just sayin’.”

The elevator dinged, alerting them to possible company. A man and a woman joined them in the hallway; they, too, were talking in low voices and, once or twice, surreptitiously eyeballed the two superheroes.

“I’d like to remind you again, Cap, that I _know_ this girl; I know what she’s capable of. She once hired a veritable army of random people to keep me in their sights just so she was aware of what the hell I do practically every minute of every day. And whenever I tried to reject her or let her down, she would start spreading all these rumors against me—that I gave her STD, that I had a lovechild with some prostitute. All the rumors and gossip that there ever were about me almost always had Heather Devigne or one of her cronies or paid henchmen at the root of it. Until Pepper, bless her, put a stop to it with a restraining order.” Tony eyed the newcomers with suspicion until they disappeared into one of the rooms at the end of the short hall. “Since securing a restraining order is currently out of the question, I’m practically a sitting duck on open season. Unless, by some miracle, we can pull off the unpullable and be convincing boyfriends for the next _four_ days or until we’re back to civilization.” Tony’s unspoken ‘which I doubt’ hung in the air between them, but at least Steve didn’t hear it from him.

“You got a couch I can sleep in in there?” Steve asked, resigned.

Tony fought to control a toothy grin from possibly breaking his face. "You can check out the amenities yourself," he invited, slotting the keycard into the doorknob device and unlocking the room.

The room _was_ big, but it was a studio-type one. There was a receiving area on the left from the door of a small, round coffee table flanked by two armchairs. Against the wall perpendicular to the door was a long panel of low redwood cabinets where the hotel minibar, snacks and freebies were ensconced, and right above it was the huge flat screen TV. Facing the door that opened to the hallway was another door that led to a balcony that showcased the moonlight-bathed cove. The bed was a king-sized one with an impressive redwood relief headboard and sandwiched between rustic bedside tables with teardrop lamps and the room control console. The bathroom and walk-in closet were in a roomlocated behind the big bed, parallel to where the TV was mounted, and access were through two doors by each of the bedside tables. The comfortable-looking couch was pushed against the wall where the balcony door was. But on it was an assortment of equipment: the unknown machine that Tony dragged with him when they arrived that morning, several battered laptops, what looked like converted gaming consoles and the remains of a hairdryer and an internet router.

“If I’m sleeping here, we have to clear the couch,” insisted Steve.

“About that… That looks like junk but it’s actually functioning. We can’t move it without rebooting and that would be a waste of bandwidth and it will take time.” Motioning to the bed, Tony continued, “leave the couch alone and just sleep on the bed.”

“And where will you sleep?”

“Duh. On the bed. It’s big enough,” countered Tony, waving a dismissive hand. “Look at it this way: when we stayed in Clint’s farmhouse, he put us in one room, too. Only we didn’t get to sleep in it because we were too pumped up with adrenaline and worry juice.” Guilt juice and the overwhelming desire to put things to rights kept Tony up then, so he had stayed in the den with Bruce for company. They talked about what had gone down in Wakanda and the bare bones of the plan that they’d hatched with Fury.

“Speak for yourself— _I_ slept in the room that night. Fitfully—if I might add. Clint did huh? So you were supposed to kip in the room with me? Hmm, he didn’t tell me that we were supposed to stay in the same room...” Steve looked genuinely surprised to hear only now about the actual details of their accommodations in the Barton farm. And there was something else in his tone, too. But Tony couldn’t put a finger on it.

“So… think of this as Barton Farm Mark II, only without the threat of Ultron. And we are actually staying in a nice hotel—which I own—on an island paradise. It’ll be fine, Cap. We may be _pretending_ to be boyfriends for the public eye, but that doesn’t mean I cannot keep my hands to myself when it’s just us,” said Tony by way of reassurance. Though he had a reputation for being a handsy Lothario, he should be smart enough to establish limitations when it came to having a pretend relationship with Captain America, unless he wanted to get brained with a Vibranium shield.

“Right. So… which side of the bed should I…?” Steve trailed off on the question, hesitantly.

“I usually sleep on the left. So the right’s all yours,” Tony called from within the bathroom. “I have some extra lounge pants and a hotel tee right here.” Returning to the room in his boxers and a black wifebeater, he placed the extra clothing for Steve on the latter’s side of the bed.

Before long, they were settled, each in their respective sides. Steve was on his right side, facing the coffee table and Tony was on his back, staring at the ceiling. “Well, night night,” said Tony, closing his eyes and breathing a deep sigh.

It was a while before Steve acknowledged and answered so softly that Tony thought he might have already fallen asleep and just imagined it. “Good night, Tony.”  


	6. Of Sunblock and String Instruments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys spend some time on the beach and later, a concert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's made their presence felt. Keep the love flowing... Happy Valentine's to everyone!
> 
> Same drill as regards any issues, a'ight?
> 
> Written to the tune of "Science and Faith" by The Script on loop...  
> ___

Tony awoke to the uncommon sound of twittering birds, waves crashing to shore, and occasional beeping from the myriad of contraptions on the couch. Weak sunlight was pouring in from the open balcony door that made him groggily blink away residual sleep from his eyes.

With an audible groan, Tony heaved himself up to a sitting position on the bed. Turning to the side that the good Captain claimed for himself the night before, Tony found it vacant. The pillows were in order and the sheets smooth that it looked like it had not been slept in. Figures that Captain Rogers was not very keen on sharing the same bed with him that he’d probably scrammed at the crack of dawn. Twisting the other way to get out of bed, Tony noticed a piece of hotel stationery held down by a screwdriver on his side of the bed’s small table.

_ Went out for a run to see the rest of the island. Don’t go to secluded areas by yourself. I’ll catch you later. –SR _ Tony replaced the paper on his bedside table and stood up from the bed, furiously raking a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, not to straighten it out but to stimulate him further awake. If his calculations were correct, and they always were, this was the longest he had ever slept in five months. And he was internally conceding that maybe his body was not used to reasonable hours of sleep anymore. He actually wanted to go back to bed, crawl deeper in the blankets and sleep for another seven hours, but he fought the urge. He had a job to do.

It was his first early morning on the Isles of Baime and he needed to get to the highest point in the cove facing the Banda Sea to install a makeshift satellite signal transceiver and gamma radiation sensor that was accurate within a radial distance of 20 kilometers. Later, he planned to install the same thing on strategic areas of the nearby islands and islets to create a sensor net over a portion of the Banda and Timor seas. FRIDAY had confirmed with him the night before, before he went out to fetch the Captain to go to the luau, the actual locations of three identified wreckages of his stealth quinjet, and any one of them could contain more clues as to where Bruce could have sought refuge. It was just a matter of installing these sensors and then waiting for his satellites to triangulate several possible Hulk-sanctuary sites.

The warning from Steve not to go to secluded areas by himself made Tony snort through brushing his teeth. He was going to have to disobey a direct order, but at least there would be no threat of Heather Devigne in those other islands and islets.

After his morning ablutions, Tony was on the balcony dressed in his triple-layer bio-weave under-armor suit. “FRIDAY, you with me, sweets?” Tony tapped the communicator stuffed in his right ear.

_ “Ready when you are, Sir.” _

Tony gestured the Mark XLIX initializing sequence, and barely twenty seconds later, pieces of his prototype suit came zooming in at Mach 4 speed from the stratosphere where its storage module was annexed to a Stark Industries roving satellite that was on low Earth orbit at 9.3 kilometers per second. The suit’s pieces assembled around him and cocooned him within its protective embrace within 15.3 seconds. “Note the speed for full suit functionality, FRIDAY. See if we can’t cut it down by another 12%,” Tony rattled off when he saw the data in the HUD. “We can do better than 15.3 seconds, can’t we, sweets?”

_ “Command is duly noted and diagnostics initialized.” _

“Good girl. Now... I’m tired of this game of hide-and-seek. Let’s see if we can’t close in on Brucie-bear’s whereabouts today.” Firing up his repulsors, Tony was off to install his transceivers. If he was lucky he could get this done quickly and still find the time for some sun-bathing later.

"Hey FRIDAY, have the front desk deliver a message to the Captain once he's done with his run," he advised his AI while flying low over the blue green waters of the cove on the way to the highest cliff point where he was going to do some sciencing.

_ "Fire away, Sir." _ ****

"I'll meet him on the beach, past the area for beach volleyball, in a couple of hours," dictated Tony. "Got that?"

_ "Message sent, along with the advice to deliver once Captain Rogers was back from his run." _

It took Tony a total of two hours and forty minutes to install eight transceivers in the highest point in the Baime cove and seven other locations. He activated and configured all of them, which, in effect, put a sensor net for detection of gamma radiation over the south quadrants of the Banda Sea and the north quadrants of the Timor Sea with an area of about 300 square kilometers. If there was a tick in the area that had even a hair of gamma radiation, Tony's sensors could pick it up and trace it to within 2 meters of its location.

It was already approaching ten o'clock in the morning when Tony, in one of his usual black wifebeaters, blue board shorts, sunglasses perched on his nose and barefoot, sauntered past the occupied recliners and stopped by the one where Steve was.

The Captain was reposed on a lounger, reading a thick paperback, and wearing a V-necked short-sleeved white shirt and New York Knicks basketball shorts, quite oblivious to the stolen glances and whisperings of the other beach idlers.

“Hey there, old man,” Tony greeted, pulling the sunglasses to sit on the edge of his nose. He folded his frame on the vacant lounger beside Steve’s without waiting to be acknowledged. “You’re on a beach on an island-paradise on a beautiful day like this one and you have your nose buried in a book. Really?!”

“It happens to be a really good book,” defended Steve, but closing the paperback he was reading regardless to give his undivided attention to the newcomer. “I’m sorry I had to leave without word this morning. I really wanted to go for a run, see the rest of the place because I don’t really know if I’d ever be back here again.” Narrowing his eyes to avoid the glare of the sun, Steve looked sheepish at having to leave a sleeping Tony with nary a sound or a word goodbye.

Tony waved a hand and scrunched his face dismissively to show that he didn’t really mind. “You just beat me to it. It’s fine,” he said, but segued, “so what book is that?”

“It’s a sci-fi. Isaac Asimov,” replied Steve, passing the book along to Tony.

“I didn’t know you like sci-fi. I’ve always pegged you to be a classics type of guy,” Tony revealed, reading the back cover of the book quickly before returning it to its owner.

“Well, I can read anything. I’m not picky. But, I have to say it was you who got me into reading sci-fi.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah... All the better to understand you when you talk science gibberish,” teased Steve, setting the book down on the sand underneath his lounger. “Busy morning?”

“I was just setting up some transceivers. Nothing major,” Tony said, sitting straighter on his recliner and moving the sunglasses from his nose to the top of his head. The blue-green waters of the cove looked picture-perfect. White buoys and the occasional sea foam dot the breakwater. There were already swimmers and wakeboards adding color not only to the waters but also to the pale gray sand. People were lounged about in recliners and on beach towels, mostly in small groups. There were also a handful of pure-bred dogs and their owners, playing along the surf or throwing Frisbees.

There were no nude sun-bathers to Tony’s utter dismay.

Taking the hem of his black wifebeater, Tony took off his shirt, slung it on the back of his lounger and stood up. “You’d rather read but I think I’ll take a dip in the shallows. Be right back.” He patted the Captain’s bare right ankle before putting his sunglasses back on its perch on his nose and jogging towards the surf clad only in his shorts.

The water didn’t only look amazing; it felt amazing, too. Though he only stayed in the shallows—where the water was only up to his abdomen—because he was still a bit dodgy around huge bodies of water, he thoroughly enjoyed the feel of it against his skin. Removing his sunglasses for a moment to submerge his head for just a bit, he quickly raked a hand through his wet hair and wiped the wet from his face. He was out of the water just as quickly as he had decided that he wanted a quick dip.

The Captain was looking significantly redder in the face and neck by the time that Tony had made his way back to their adjacent loungers. He wasn’t reading anymore, but he was still subtly thumbing the paperback as if he needed something to keep his hands occupied.

“You’re looking a bit sunburned already, Cap. Don’t you have any sunblock lotion?”

“I really burn easily. Must be the Irish in my blood,” reasoned Steve with coyness. He looked at Tony and then to the vicinity of Tony’s left ear. Whatever he had seen there, it must not have any good because his face degenerated into a thunderous expression. “But if you have some, I wouldn’t mind it,” the blonde quickly recovered with a tight-lipped smile though.

Motioning for a passing attendant, Tony made a whispered request. The attendant was back barely a minute later with a small bottle of sunblock lotion, which she handed to Steve with a sympathetic smile.

Steve quickly lathered some on his face, neck and forearms, and taking his shirt off, also rubbed some on his biceps, chest and those washboard abs of his. Tony tried to look away out of respect for the Captain because—hey!—lathering on sunblock seemed like something that was really intimate. And it wasn’t very polite to ogle and practically drool at the man, which he was quite sure was _exactly_ what he was doing. But once or twice, Tony stole surreptitious glances at Steve. Well—because he can. And because, the guy looked _amazing_ ; surely it wasn’t so wrong to just... stare a bit and admire? It wasn’t like he was going to ask if he could lick it or something!

“I can’t quite reach my back. Can you give me a hand?”

Thinking that Steve couldn’t possibly be talking to him, Tony looked to his left and then his right. And then meeting Steve gaze squarely, asked, “oh—were you talking to _me_?”

“Who else would I be talking to?”

Tony’s eyes widened further when Steve stood up from his lounger, sat on Tony’s and offered his back for lotion lathering. So as not to clue the other man that something was amiss—Tony’s mind was still reeling from seeing Steve’s really envy-worthy physique, which he was now permitted to actually _touch_ —he began squirting lotion on his hand and rubbing it on the Captain’s back starting with the vicinity of his shoulder blades and working his way down.

It took nearly all of Tony’s willpower not to pant.

Though still unsure as to what brought this on, Tony kept to the program and massaged the lotion on Steve’s deltoids, below his shoulder blades, the groove on his spine, and the area of his gluteus medius muscles on the waist of his shorts. Reminding himself inwardly that Steve could probably tell if Tony was enjoying himself a bit too much, he massaged the Captain’s back wearing as straight a face as he could muster.

But that didn’t mean that Tony couldn’t milk this for all it was worth. Clenching his jaw to keep himself from giving any sort of reaction, he ventured lower on the Captain’s back and was even so brazen as to slip the tips of his fingers past the waistband of the blonde man’s basketball shorts. Tony felt Steve’s breath hitch at that bold exploration. He also noticed that the back of the Captain’s neck was steadily reddening despite the generous sunblock layer.

Steve cleared his throat with a tentative, “eherm-hmm.” But didn’t tell Tony to quit molesting him or prepare to have his face embossed with a great big star from Captain America’s shield.

“I don’t understand how you’re still turning red with all that sunblock. Or maybe... It’s not the sun,” Tony hinted, pursing his lips from behind Steve and fighting to keep the teasing tone out of his voice. He inwardly filed the information away for future use: when Captain America blushes, he blushes _all over_...

“Your turn,” Steve animatedly said, turning around to face Tony and motioning for the latter to present his own backside for sunblock application.

“It’s alright, I have a higher threshold for sunburn,” Tony reassured, not really looking forward to be on the receiving end of Steve’s ministrations because he knew that the Captain was not above giving him a taste of his own medicine.

“Nonsense. Come on, let me do your back.”

_ Oooooh _ ! Yes, please! Tony bit his lower lip and blinked thrice in succession, disbelieving that his ears had heard that level of innuendo from none other than Captain Steven Grant Rogers, himself—prude extraordinaire. Or maybe Tony should completely revise his opinion of his Commander? Turning on his behind, Tony jerkily offered his shirtless back to Steve for the latter to put sunblock on it, and it was then that he saw Heather Devigne eyeing them with immense interest from the beach bar hut.

Ah so... the game _was_ afoot.

Tony didn’t even know whether to thank or get pissed off at Heather at this point. She was like a villain that didn’t know when to quit, a persistent insect that kept buzzing around his face. But at the same time, it was whenever she was around that Steve dropped his walls and became a different person around Tony. He didn’t want to admit it, but Steve was actually a pretty convincing boyfriend if he set his mind to it.

“How long has she been sitting there looking at us?” Tony asked through a contrived grin, trying to keep his attention away from the fact of Steve’s warm palms massaging sunblock all over his back.

“Since I told you that I wouldn’t mind some sunblock if you have it,” Steve murmured back, absent-mindedly kneading Tony’s back lower. Lower. Lower...

Suddenly jerking to the side like he’d been hit with something, Tony giggled. “Shit... Would you mind taking it easy there? I’m kinda ticklish.” Goosies started erupting on the expanse of lightly tanned skin on Tony’s back.

“Oh you mean right here?” Steve asked innocently, kneading the same spot that sent Tony doubling over to the side again. “You want to give your girlfriend a show?” The Captain asked softy against the shell of Tony’s right ear.

God—who was this person?! He was going to have to talk to Natasha. Because the Widow was obviously a bad influence on the Captain.

It was when Steve was trying to get at Tony’s ticklish spots and the latter was trying to put up a fight that Heather came up to them with a diabolically fake smile and a greeting. “Hey Heather,” Tony greeted back, breathless.

“Looks like you two are having fun,” she observed.

“Well, it’s our first vacation with just the two of us, so we wanted to make the most of it, you know,” replied Steve, smiling endearingly at Tony. It was like he was speaking to Heather, but has eyes only for Tony. It was so brilliantly natural that it made Tony’s breath catch in his throat.

Recovering quickly since he was _the_ Tony Stark and not some blushing sophomore in the presence of his crush, he met Steve’s blue eyes and, turning on The Smolder®, said in his sexiest baritone, “if things were entirely up to me though, we wouldn’t even be seen in public at all. I’d rather keep you all to myself in our room. On our bed. All hours of the day and night. Fu—“

“— _Let’s..._ spare Heather all the details of our relationship, _babe_. I don’t think she’s all that interested to hear about it,” Steve interjected, turning two shades redder, if it were even possible.

“Au contraire. I’m sure I’m not only speaking for myself when I say I’d love to hear _all_ about it. But I’m sure there will be time for that later,” said Heather, smiling like a shark on a trail of blood. “I hope we get to see you in the concert and the charity auction dinner later tonight.”

Steve gave her another brilliant smile, “we wouldn’t want to miss it. Tony and I are just passionate about charity. Aren’t we, babe?”

“Yeah-huh,” said Tony in absent-minded affirmation. He was of two minds: he didn’t know whether to wish for the next three days of this pretense to pass by more quickly or to have it last as long as possible just to keep hearing Steve Rogers call him ‘babe’.

When Heather was already quite a ways from them, Tony muttered to Steve, “for the record, that pet name is so clichéd, it’s not even funny. I’d like to remind you that I had nothing to do with it. That was all you.”

“She really is a piece of work, Tony. I don’t know why you don’t think she’s a keeper,” Steve mocked with a disdainful shake of his head and a chaste pat on Tony’s bare back that was still within his reach. “And I think she may be back to her old ways of hiring people to keep you in their sights. I’ve seen her make meaningful eye contact with at least four different people since I noticed she was even around.”

Tony groaned his dissatisfaction. “Great,” he mumbled, his face breaking into a scowl. “I can’t believe you promised her that we’d be at the concert and auction dinner later. The objective is _to steer clear of her_. Not to get in situations where she’d have more opportunity to find out that we’re not really in a relationship.”

“Do you think if we steer clear of her we’d convince her of anything and that she’d actually stop hounding your every step?” Steve asked, folding his shirt into a neat square and placing it on the foot of his lounger. “Because _I_ don’t think so. The goal is not to steer clear of her. The goal is to convince her that there’s no way you’d give her the time of day because you’re spoken for. And that’s the only way you’d get her off your back for good,” said Steve with his usual strategic conviction.

Tony’s eyebrows furrowed at that and he opened his mouth, prepared to argue with Steve. But realizing the logic of the reliable, tried-and-tested tactician, he resignedly closed his maw again with an indignant huff. “Yeah—you know I’m right.” Steve appeared to relish the fact that he got one up on Tony Stark.

“You don’t know what you’re signing up for, committing to going to that concert. Like Captain America and dancing, me and string instruments playing in unison don’t mix.” Tony warned the other man, his voice grave.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But right now, we have bigger problems,” countered Steve with a nervous purse of his lips. “If we’re going to a black-tie event, I haven’t got anything to wear.”

“Let me worry about that,” dismissed Tony, folding his arms over his head, tucking them behind his head and getting comfortable on his lounger. “Go take a dip. I put a _ridiculous_ amount of sunblock on your back; don’t bloody let it go to waste.”

Plus, he wanted to get an eyeful of a really ripped Captain Rogers in nothing but Knicks shorts for his own personal enjoyment. But the less the Captain knew about that, the better.

###

Steve had to hand it to Tony Stark. Barely five hours later, there already was a five-piece formal suit—crisp white long-sleeved and stiff-collared polo shirt, slacks, waistcoat, outer coat, and bow tie all in midnight blue, complete with fancy cuff links,socks, silk handkerchief, and Prada leather dress shoes—in a suit bag, waiting for him in his hotel room with a note attached to it.

_ Meet you in the gazebo at 5:20 so we can make our grand entrance. Bring gum. -TS _

Putting it on, Steve was further amazed by how it was a perfect fit like it was custom-made for him. But it was puzzling considering that they were in a pretty remote island where haute couture was not a staple, and only a few hours had passed since they had discussed the need for formal wear.

Fighting the inner fuzzies from causing that feeling of tickles and electricity at the base of his skull— _again_ , Steve focused on straightening his crooked bow tie on the vanity mirror of his bathroom. Tony Stark has been causing sheer havoc in his otherwise calm disposition since this damn vacation started, so much so that Steve started to regret his series of ill-advised improvisations: asking Tony to stay and not go back to the mainland to try to change Pepper's mind, passing himself off as Tony's boyfriend to hold his stalker at bay, deciding to sleep over at Tony's hotel room and sharing the same damn bed with the man, asking for Tony's help to put sunblock lotion on his back, committing to going to this evening's concert and auction dinner. It was like a series of one bad call after another that he had no business considering himself a strategist when there was _nothing_ strategic and tactical with all the things he's done since setting foot on the cruise ship and on this island!

He couldn't put a finger on it, but there was something about the combination of Tony and being on this island paradise without the worries that used to characterize Steve's every day that made him want to be more impulsive and less cautious.

He was afraid of how things were changing so quickly and drastically for him when it came to one Tony Stark. Case in point was the way his insides tangled themselves into tight knots when he woke up that morning with his right arm thrown over Tony's abdomen and Tony's right leg hooked over his left one. Suffice it to say that he had never shaken residual grogginess faster than he had that morning.

Things didn't get better for Steve when Tony joined him at the beach later on that same morning. Steve remembered his embarrassing reaction to seeing Tony Stark in that god-awful black tank top. And _out_ of it. It should be unlawful for anyone to be as attractive as that in such simple pieces of clothing, but Tony absolutely _killed_ the look.

Steve felt automatically protective of the brunette when he saw Heather Devigne lurking in the background, trying to call them out on their bluff of being lovers. At least, that was what Steve hoped had been going through his mind to make sense of what he did after seeing Heather around.

Steve could still feel Tony's firm, warm and almost rough touch against his back, down the groove of his spine and past the waistband of the basketball shorts he had been wearing. And even now, electricity crawled and crackled underneath his skin that made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

Raising his hands in defeat, Steve gave up on trying to fix his bow tie and settled on raking a comb through his blonde hair. He actually dreaded tonight not because he didn't want to hang out with Tony anymore. On the contrary, he liked hanging out with the genius-billionaire. Perhaps _too much_. Recalling the standing warning from Tony himself that string instruments didn't agree with him, Steve started to wonder exactly what he had meant by that.

Half-wishing that Tony wouldn't show up like what had happened during the Fellowship Night, Steve waited for his fake boyfriend in the gazebo. He kept an eye out for Heather also and steeled himself to explain about Tony's whereabouts.

"Hey there, gorgeous," Tony greeted from behind Steve in his baritone, which the Captain was really starting to detest.

Steve groaned inwardly when he turned on the balls of his feet to find Tony dressed to impress in a deep gray almost black suit, light gray-silvery inner polo shirt, black Testoni leather dress shoes and a scarf of white silk draped on his neck that contrasted nicely with his dark suit. The billionaire's hair was tousled stylishly and his van dyke was impeccably trimmed. His now lightly-tanned skin brought out the amber in his brown eyes that, as per usual, gleamed with deep amusement.

"Hey yourself," Steve greeted back, doing his hardest to hide any sort of reaction he may have to seeing Tony look so otherworldly good looking.

Snickering, Tony stepped closer to him and, with his deft fingers, re-knotted Steve's bow tie. The amusement never left his golden eyes and his half-smile. "All set. Tsk," said Tony, knocking his fist softly against Steve's dimpled jaw and gesturing for them to start walking towards the concert venue.

They were greeted at the ingress to the hall by the organizers and some of Tony's more familiar acquaintances. Thankfully, they just seemed to be wordlessly accepting of Tony's relationship with the Captain who also happened to be his superhero teammate. So they just greeted Steve as warmly as they greeted the billionaire.

Once they were seated, Steve leaned towards Tony and asked, "what did you mean when you said that you and string instruments don't mix?"

"String instruments being played send me to sleep like that," replied Tony, snapping his fingers. "That's why I never listen to it whenever I'm in my workshop. Rock and metal music are better for my focus. Classical music, particularly string instruments, is a no-no."

Steve nodded his head once in understanding. "By the way, I don't have gum. I only have about three mint candies. You can have all of them."

"That'll only tide me over for half an hour. If I fall asleep, can you make sure I don't look too conspicuous? I do have a rep to protect, you know," Tony requested, crossing his legs regally and clasping his hands on his lap.

"I'll do my best," Steve as good as promised with slight amusement.

The concert started on time, and Steve was soon immersed in the entrancing music, not paying much mind to his teammate who was sucking on mints to keep alert. About 25 minutes in, Steve just casually glanced at Tony through the near darkness of the hall and found that Tony was nodding off, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted and chin propped on his hand.

Steve felt his face break into a scowl. If there was anything that Steve detested more than Tony's voice or his intensely beautiful brown eyes, it was Tony's face when he was asleep—that vulnerable, all-guards-down, innocent face that only that very morning nearly took Steve's breath away. The concert forgotten, Steve intently watched Tony napping in the soft yellow light of the concert hall like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Tony was so out of it, he was nodding his head off the hand that was supporting it. His elbow would, once or twice, slip off the arm rest as well, but his eyes remained closed and his face unguarded.

Steve thought that Tony should definitely look that way more often. The billionaire always seemed to look so preoccupied and careful about showing too much emotions. Steve never bothered to ask what brought that kind of behavior on, but he could hazard a guess that it had something to do with Tony's complicated relationship with Howard.

Taking pity on the genius-billionaire's state, Steve leaned back on his seat and casually angled his shoulder to catch Tony's lolling head the next time it slipped off being propped on his palm. And the sleeping head actually stayed on his shoulder. Steve very subtly propped his own head against Tony's, becoming heady with the smell of the billionaire's shampoo, and turned his attention back to the orchestra.

He felt himself steadily wading into deeper waters, more dangerous territory. Tony was like a whirlwind, rapidly but surely changing things in Steve's little, old-fashioned world. And Steve secretly welcomed it. For the first time in a long time, he had never felt so sure of what he wanted nor so in tune with what he felt. He wanted to be around Tony because with Tony he actually felt alive.


	7. Going Once, Going Twice...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've found out that Captain America: Civil War will be shown here in my country on 28 April 2016. So at least I already have a Due-By date on this baby. Here's to hoping I could deliver this story in full by then... 
> 
> I have also upped the rating to M because of (ahem) certain interaction in later chapters, and that's something to keep your eyes peeled for...
> 
> I'm still very much in love with a piano-playing Tony Stark, so sue me...
> 
> Same drill, y'all. Un-beta edited. Possible issues. Let me know. Comments. Kudos. Love you forever. Huzzah!
> 
> Without further ado, here we go...

Tony looked at Steve, suspicion etched on his otherwise self-satisfied face. "No, really. How long was I out during the concert?" Tony asked for the nth time since the concert finished.

"I told you... It couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes because I, myself, barely even noticed it," Steve answered, slightly impatient. He turned to the stranger on his right, who was one of the eight people they had to share the table with, with a forced smile.

"But I _was_ using you for a pillow?"

"I hardly noticed."

"I didn't drool on your suit, did I?"

Steve shook his head, fervently hoping that Tony wouldn't call him out on his lie. No, Tony didn't drool on him. But Steve _did_ let Tony sleep on his shoulder for the rest of the concert, which was definitely more than 'just a couple of minutes'.

"Huh. It felt longer than just a couple of minutes," said Tony wistfully, but he seemed like he was finally willing to let the subject drop.

 _The Allegria_ 's Grand Ballroom was pimped up for the charity auction dinner. Everything looked either shiny new or shiny expensive. All the participants are in their best threads and their best behavior. Mellow jazz music was streaming from the speakers to accompany the scrumptious five-course dinner that, no doubt, was prepared by the best and the brightest in the culinary world.

The official program began with an enthusiastic welcome from the head organizer of the event. Several more speeches were made before the first auction item was brought on the makeshift stage. There were a couple of antiques, some art works, literary pieces and even Swarovski-studded clothing. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly because none of the auction items involved tech stuff, Tony did not bid on any of them. He was content with savoring each bite of his decadent dessert.

What did interest Tony, although Steve couldn't imagine any conceivable use that the genius-billionaire may have for it since it didn't involve anything remotely technological, was a clay sculpture made by a fledgling artist from St. Bartholomew's Center. Tony was the first—and only—bid at two hundred thousand dollars that seemed to Steve to be too much considering the humble item. But Tony didn't even bat an eyelash.

"Where do you plan on putting it?" Steve asked the brunette politely even if Steve already knew that the clay sculpture would be terribly out of place in Tony's ultramodern premises.

"I'll let Pepper worry about that," Tony replied, simply.

When he let his mind wander off, Steve, with his enhanced aural ability, heard someone from the adjacent table whisper to his own companion, “awfully big of Stark to bid such a hefty amount for a piece of junk. Like we don’t know already that he can buy each and every one of us here if he wanted to.”

“He’s always had a soft spot for the children in conflict with the law at St. Bart’s. Last year, he placed a bid through a representative for a _patchwork quilt_ —of all things—at one hundred grand!” The companion hissed back.

“Wow. Did he win?”

“What d’you expect? It was a _quilt_ and he bid _one hundred grand_?! Who else was crazy enough to spend such a ridiculous amount of money for a run-of-the mill item? Of course, he won!”

Steve stole a surreptitious glance at Tony, now finding a new appreciation for what the genius-billionaire did. He was in the middle of his thoughts when the auctioneer/emcee announced, "at his juncture, we would like to change the tenor of the auction. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want the chance to spend time with the following desirable people, then get out your wallets and place your bids. All proceeds will go to the movement and the various charities they support. First up, a chance to spend the day on a date with none other than Captain America, himself, Captain Steve Rogers!"

His heart literally dropped to his stomach at that. So that was the price to be paid for the movement's generous invitation to this event?! To bid out his company to whoever was willing to pay the most ridiculous amount of money for it... He was deaf to the cheers, excited murmuring and soft squeals that accompanied the announcement of his name. This was bad. Really, really bad...

"Come on, Captain. Don't be shy. It's for a good cause after all. Shall we start the bidding at a thousand dollars?" The emcee motioned him over, keeping an eye for any takers on the starting bid.

He must have looked absolutely mortified because Tony looked at him with a mixture of puzzlement and anxiety. Before he could lose his nerve, Steve seized Tony by the wrist and mumbled quite audibly, "do something... _Please_..."

When Tony just stared blankly at him as if to ask 'what do you want me to do?', Steve hissed again with unmistakable alarm, "anything..."

He walked like he was heading to the gallows and to his death. Everything seemed to have crawled at a near-standstill in his dread. The thing with him was that he was socially awkward. He was only warm-ish towards people he had known for some time already. Then again, he could still be aloof even to people he had already known for a considerable amount of time as Tony Stark himself could attest to.

Being a sickly runt of a guy for most of his life did something to his self-esteem more than he was willing to consciously come to terms with.

"One thousand," a female voice called out from the middle of the ballroom. It was the same woman eyeing him on the first day of the cruise. She was tabled with the rest of her mates and they looked like they were in a semi-heated and murmured discussion possibly to pool their money to bid for Steve.

"Do something, Tony, please," Steve mumbled under his breath.

"Two thousand dollars," Heather Devigne called out with a sneer.

Steve's brow furrowed at that. What was that nutcase doing bidding for his company?! But Steve could guess that, one way or another, it would have something to do with Tony and her unhealthy obsession.

"Three thousand," another called out, this time a man in his late 40s or thereabouts, a silver fox dressed smartly in a black tux lined with white satin. Steve had no idea who he was but he made a mental note to ask Tony.

"Four thousand, right here." It was the first bidder, still in heated consultations with her table mates.

There was a moment of silence and Steve was afraid that that was it—the last bid. His gut clenched in silent anticipation.

But it was then that a voice—loud, strong and confident reverberated all over the ballroom: "ten thousand dollars. Suck on that, bitches!" Tony raised a martini glass from all the way by the bar on the far side of the ballroom and winked conspiratorially at Steve.

Steve was momentarily surprised that this was what Tony decided to do. Frankly, the Captain was expecting Tony to drunkenly make a scene or something to disrupt the conduct of the auction. But this was alright, too. Anything to save Steve from having to go on a date with a stranger and be socially awkward from start to finish was much appreciated.

"Twelve thousand!" It was Heather again.

"Fifteen..." Mr. Silver fox said in a calm and low voice with a slight flick of his wrist.

"Sixteen!" The table where the first bidder was nearly screamed in unison.

"Twenty thousand," said Tony with condescending smile to his nearest neighbors by the bar, as if saying that twenty grand was not even a drop in the bucket for him.

"Twenty five." The Silver fox interjected, making Tony narrow his eyes.

Steve bobbed his head this way and that, following where the bids were coming from. Part of him was concerned that the bid was already ridiculously high. But another part of him wanted to send Tony a telepathic message to outbid everyone else, no matter what.

"Thirty grand," Tony called out, his face a mask of challenge towards the distinguished Mr. Silver fox.

"Thirty-one," Heather butted in again, letting everyone know that she wasn't out of the running yet.

The first bidder's table fell into a chorus of gasps before signaling to the emcee that they concede. They couldn't match the bid, not even if they pooled all their savings and sold all their possessions including the clothes on their backs.

"Thirty-five." Silver fox again. Who was this guy?!

"Forty thousand," Tony rebutted. He was already in the middle of the large room, face set in a serious expression.

"Forty-five. Let's see how far you can take this, Stark," Silver fox dared with a sneer, his first display of natural emotion.

"Let's go, Cromley. _Forty-eight thousand_. Are you sure you want to go head-to-head with me on this?" Tony looked absolutely self-satisfied.

"Forty-nine." Steve wanted to chew his fingernails, anxious as to Silver fox's play.

"Come on! Give me a better challenge than that. _Sixty_ grand," said Tony, perusing his fingernails like he was bored out of his mind.

The man that Tony had called Cromley sighed with an almost imperceptible shake of his salt-and-pepper head. And gestured his concession to the auctioneer. Heather also motioned that she was out.

Steve shifted from one foot to the other, waiting with bated breath for the final outcome of the bid.

"Going once, going twice... _Sold_ to Mr. Tony Stark for sixty thousand dollars! Well, that's a tough one to follow but let's see who we have next..." Relieved, Steve tuned out the emcee as he made his way off the stage, making a beeline for Tony who was still standing in the middle of the ballroom like a king basking in the attention of his inferiors.

"Thanks for that," he said breathlessly, clasping Tony's bicep.

"You owe me a date, Cap," reminded Tony without humor, taking a huge swig from his martini glass. "Sixty grand for a lousy date... Got any plans tomorrow?"

"It's my _birthday_ tomorrow," replied Steve, crossing his arms over his broad chest and roaming his eyes over the crowd again.

"Figures that Captain America's birthday is on the fourth of fucking July," Tony retorted with a derisive snort. "So got any plans for your birthday then?"

"I was thinking of just staying in and finishing my book, maybe watch the fireworks display come nighttime..."

"Let's go out tomorrow, explore the island...celebrate your birthday," urged Tony, making it sound like begging off was not an option.

"OK. I guess I owe you that much."

"Damn right."

Silence. And then, "Tony, who's that man—Cromley?"

"He's a dick. A telecomm company CEO, who has always considered himself a rival of mine from way back when we were in MIT. But I'm really out of his league, so basically it's just all in his head—"

"Why the interest in outbidding you for me?"

"Because he's a _dick_ , like I said. It's his life-long dream to beat me at something. Makes him no different from Heather, really. Heather's obsessed with me and Cromley's obsessed with putting one up on me," explained Tony, waving a dismissive hand as if to tell Steve that it wasn't worth mulling over. "Sometimes I wonder how I know these people, why they love hanging around me...

"Heather bidding for you though—what the fuck?" Tony asked, changing the subject and craning his neck probably to look for the thin woman in the throng.

"She must be testing us," replied Steve. He had been thinking about that, too. "Good thing you didn't fold."

"I never fold. I always get what I want," said Tony like a mantra of sorts.

Steve slightly shivered at that word and the way that the genius-billionaire said it: _want_. He didn't want to read any more into it; he tried to tamp down on his knee-jerk reaction.

"Can I ask you something?" Tony ventured, tentative, after another short interval of silence.

Steve just nodded, eyes soft.

"Are you seeing anyone right now?"

"What—you mean like...dating?"

"Sure—"

"Yeah," Steve didn't want to deny to Tony that he was seeing Sharon Carter once in a while, but he was mighty curious as to where the questioning was going. "Why?"

"Nothing," said Tony with a purse of his lips and an absent-minded snap-clap of his dexterous hands. "I hope they're not the jealous type."

"Why would they be jealous?"

"I take dating very seriously, Cap. I like pulling out all the stops, especially for a _sixty grand_ -worth date," said Tony with a straight face. "I hope you're ready to be swept off your feet, fake boyfriend o’ mine, because I could very well ruin you for any future dates."

"Conceited much?"

" _Candid_. Not conceited," Tony joked, fighting a smile off his face. "No—seriously though... I intend to make tomorrow memorable because it's not every day I celebrate a friend's—what, centenary?"

"Not yet. 98th," supplied Steve.

Tony whistled. "Jeez... 98 and still pretty spry! Gotta hand it to you, old man!" Tony slapped a hand on Steve's shoulder and squeezed.

They observed the next set of auctions, occasionally conversing about the myriad of personalities passing their table to greet Tony and give a polite nod to Steve. He actually found Tony pleasant to talk to; the genius-billionaire was a hilariously sarcastic, calls-it-like-he-sees-it type of fellow.

But what surprised Steve the most was what came next: "may we call on Mr. Tony Stark to do us the great honor of playing a piece on the piano?" The emcee/auctioneer requested to the accompaniment of strong urging and catcalls from the excited crowd.

Tony was coy at first, respectfully declining the request, but Steve, jerking his head towards the grand piano with what he knew was an expression of intense intrigue mixed with slight disbelief that all that time, he never knew that Tony played the piano, motioned for Tony to indulge the crowd.

Sure, there was the grand piano in the Tower penthouse that Ultron miraculously did not thrash, but Steve had always thought it was more for decoration than anything else. So to say that he was mildly curious to see Tony play something was a gross understatement.

Rolling his eyes at Steve, Tony dragged his feet towards the makeshift stage and sat on the piano chair with a discomfited close-mouthed grin, which was quickly replaced with a serene one as soon as he started playing. Steve, for his part, whipped his phone out and captured the scene on video. He wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

Steve allowed the slow piano ballad to gradually wash away the ambient sounds of the ballroom. It was as if everything else—the colors, lights, the people’s buzzing conversations—blended into the background and crawled to a standstill. There was just the music and Tony’s calm exterior that Steve was capturing with his phone’s camera. Who knew that those dexterous fingers were for something else other than to create technological marvels?! They had been teammates for some time now and yet there were still so many things he didn’t know about the man—many facets to Tony Stark that Steve was yet to discover.

And Tony played so beautifully, too. There was nothing of his impatience, sarcasm and rebelliousness in those notes. Tony played like he worked—with single-minded focus and passion for what he was doing.

All too soon, Tony finished the piece and looked towards his extremely appreciative audience with a slight bob of his head. Brilliant brown eyes met blue ones. Steve raised a flute of his non-alcoholic beverage towards the genius-billionaire by way of applause, and Tony acknowledged with a nod and the slightest twitch to the corners of his lips.

Steve, then, remembered that he would be spending the next day in Tony’s company and, surprising himself, actually became excited for another opportunity to discover more about the man that he never knew before.

###

Tony opened his eyes to his pale moonlight-bathed and silent-as-the-grave hotel room. He was automatically alert, cold with sweat and panting. He was dreaming. Of the Chitauri, of the cold, blue earth being overrun with colossal alien ships, of Ultron and his robot army swarming him like vengeful insects, of The Avengers piled on a rocky outcropping—dead as doornails...

It was his vision— _nightmare_ , really—first shown to him by Wanda Maximoff, that made him want to pursue creating Ultron, which did not _at all_ go well for everyone, mostly for Wakanda and Sokovia. It was his recurrent nightmare for a little over a year now. And no amount of self-flagellation, recompense, or distraction seemed to work to put a stop to it.

He would’ve completely lost his hold on reality and gone on another PTSD episode if not for the arm draped on his side and a hand loosely clutching at the fabric of his night shirt over his abdomen.

Steve.

Steve, who had agreed to spend another night over in his hotel room. Who had teased him about keeping it a secret that he could play the piano. Who had painstakingly listened to him go on and on about how each and every cockamamie contraption bleeping on his couch worked. Who had joked and laughed with him all night until they were both lying in bed in their night things. Who had agreed to go out on a ‘date’ with him the next day in celebration of a momentous 98th birthday…

 _That_ Steve.

Whose disappearance had consumed Tony’s father and turned the latter into a neglectful, hateful asshole. Who was quite a jerk to Tony when they had first met. Who was too bossy and serious for his own good. Who had quarreled with Tony, traded blows and scathing words with him, one too many times because of differing ideologies.

But everything seemed so different now, as if the person sleeping beside him was a completely different person.

Biting his lower lip to rein in his heavy breathing so as not to wake the other man sharing the same bed, Tony waited for the hand to move off of him so he could make his escape. Not that Steve’s presence was stifling. On the contrary, being around Steve these past few days felt like being in a thunderstorm after a year-long draught: refreshing and invigorating, which made having this nightmare again all the more jarring.

It disturbed him a bit, too, how he really was beginning to be too attached, too fond of the Captain. He ought to be careful about it because he could be a smarmy, smothering scatterbrain when he was _too fond_ of someone. If anyone doubted that self-assessment, they should ask Pepper or Rhodey.

Tony held his breath while Steve shifted around, and the arm on his torso slid off. Using all his cunning, Tony slithered out of the blankets and off the bed. He went to the balcony door that stood ajar to let in the cool sea breeze and stepped out to the balcony, half-thankful that his breathing had already returned to normal.

He scanned the 3:00am skies, the horizon where starry sky met glittering seas and the cliff faces that fringed the cove, wrapped up in his thoughts of Wanda and his perennial nightmare courtesy of her, Pepper, Bruce, Heather, JARVIS and Steve. He surprised himself by dwelling the most on thoughts of Steve: Tony’s fresh discoveries about the Captain, their recent interactions, their light-hearted conversations, and—just—how Tony was smiling and laughing more in the Captain’s company. He still thought a lot about a lot of things because— _duh_ —he was a genius, but everything seemed so much more manageable lately. Like Steve was grounding him somehow.

Leaning forward, he planted his elbows on the balcony’s balustrade and looked out towards the cove, trying to divest himself of memories of that terrible nightmare. At least this time around, he had not woken up yelling and then reduced to a quivering mess in a fetal position on one corner of a too-big bed like most nights that he’d had it. He celebrated such victories, no matter how little. It was, nevertheless, a small step towards his long sought-after redemption.

“Bad dream?” A voice—Steve’s, because who else could it be?—brought Tony out of his reverie. Straightening up, he turned towards Steve who tentatively stepped on the balcony to join him.

“Weird huh? And here, we always thought that only children get plagued by bad dreams.”

“ _Everyone_ gets bad dreams,” Steve answered with a small reassuring smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Tony didn’t want to talk about it. Primarily because he didn’t know how or where to begin to talk about it. He was afraid that Steve would just outright laugh at him, or rebuke him, or _worse_ , silently judge him with those easy-to-read blue eyes. He didn’t want to start discussing _feelings_ with Captain America again lest they end up arguing about it again like what had happened at the Barton family farm. It was that or Tony would begin to ache in the vicinity of where his arc reactor used to be for reasons utterly unfathomable to him.

With Nick Fury, it was easy to unload. That night, in the Barton farm, at their barn with their broken tractor. It was because Tony didn’t give a flying fuck what Fury thought of him. The former director of SHIELD could judge him for all Tony cared, so he’d told Fury about what Wanda had shown him—about having failed to do more, killing his friends and living with the knowledge of his failure.

But here with Steve, it was different because Tony found that he _did_ care about what Steve thought. Perhaps too much. He was afraid to dissect the probable reason why he cared. Steve, of course, didn’t know exactly what Wanda had shown Tony. But he dreaded to imagine what Steve would think if he knew.

“I don’t know. I don’t really know where to begin,” admitted Tony.

Steve looked squarely at him, licked his lips and began, “I dream about Bucky’s fall from the train—of him falling in a blizzard and trying to reach out to me, but I couldn’t reach him. Sometimes, I dream about drowning in ice-cold water—of being aware of everything while slowly succumbing to the water’s embrace. Sometimes, I dream about what could’ve been after the war—of making it to a date I had set with Peggy and dancing with her and celebrating the end of the war with her and the other Commandos.”

Diverting his attention from Tony to the moonlight-drenched cove, Steve seemed like he had gone somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, of his memories, of a life lived a long time ago. “Everybody gets bad dreams, Tony—dreams that make us relive our worst experiences or our worst regrets. Don’t be ashamed of them. It means we’re still human.”

Tony leaned against the railing with his elbows again. “I never did tell you what Wanda showed me before, when we first raided the HYDRA base in Sokovia, did I?” He ought to just plow on before he lost his nerve.

Steve gave him a quizzical stare and shook his head.

“I saw that the Chitauri had succeeded in conquering Earth; I saw all of you—the Hulk, Widow, Hawkeye, Thor...you... Dead. And I went to your side to see if I could still save you, and you told me with your dying breath that I _could’ve_ saved you but I should’ve done more. And I sat there...wondering—why you were all dead and I wasn’t.” It sounded absolutely god-awful. He didn’t know why that bothered him so much when he had always thought that he wasn’t selfless or heroic enough to make sacrifice plays—that was Cap’s job, not his.

But somehow, that...vision felt like the Ten Rings, Afghanistan and Gulmira all over again. He was a self-absorbed prick who cared more about where his next drink was coming from than about innocents put in harm’s way precisely because he couldn’t be bothered to care. And he was a failure—he didn’t do enough and his friends had paid the ultimate price and he was left standing there holding the proverbial bag. Wondering where he’d gone wrong, where he’d fallen short.

Tony hung his head in quiet resignation. “My response to that wasn’t exactly stellar. Ultron kinda made things worse. Sometimes, I dream about him, too. Then it just gets kinda tough to sleep through all that, you know. Some nights, it’s easier. Some nights, it’s not,” said Tony, biting the inside of his cheeks and pursing his lips. He completely refused to meet Steve’s eyes, apprehensive about what he would see there.

“It’s not your sole duty to save the world, Tony. We’re a team. And we’re expected to do what we can in the best way we can, and nothing more. And when we act collectively, we will win some battles, but we will lose some, too. But we continue to fight anyway. Because the world needs us to,” Steve said, turning around to lean his back on the railing and try to catch Tony’s eye better. “Sometimes, the battles break us—body and mind. Well, because we’re just human. Like it or not, we break easily. And we stay broken. But we keep on fighting. Because then at least we are broken for a reason—a reason bigger than ourselves.

“You don’t have to go it alone, you know. _We’re_ all broken, but I’ve always believed that it’s how we deal with that fact every damn day, how we find a reason to keep going, that defines us,” Steve explained. He bit his lower lip bashfully and then rubbed the side of his neck. “I couldn’t have been more wrong that day in the helicarrier. You’re one of the greatest persons I know, Tony. I know I’m not very vocal about a lot of things and we may not always see eye to eye, but I want you to know that.”

Tony wanted to preen, but he, thankfully, got hold of his emotions before he made a complete ass of himself. He just offered the Captain a lopsided grin, and realizing what time it really was, leaned sideways to bump his right shoulder against Steve’s. “Thanks and... Hey—happy, happy birthday, Captain Handsome!” Tony greeted.

Steve grinned, for once unmindful of Tony’s use of his more obscure nicknames, which Tony himself made up, and faced the cove once again, imitating Tony’s stance and leaning on the railing. “Thanks. So...”

Looking at Steve’s serene face, Tony waited for the other man to speak.

“Care to tell me what you have planned for later?”

Tony snickered. “You’re not getting anything out of me. That’s for me to know and for you to find out. But... I _can_ tell you that it’s gonna be good,” he teased.

Steve shook his head, incredulous at Tony’s cheek.

They watched the sea crash against the sand in the beach below them in companionable silence. For the first time in he didn’t know how long, Tony felt at peace with himself and with the world at large. He still worried for Bruce, sure, and still thought about Pepper, but he knew that things were going to be just dandy. One way or another, they were all broken but they could still find a reason to go on, day in and day out. And they would do it together.

“You should get some rest, birthday boy. You’re gonna have quite a day later,” Tony advised his companion. “I think I’ll stay here for a while, try to catch the sunrise.”

“You need to sleep, too, you know. Come back to bed,” the Captain urged with a jerk of his head towards the room.

Tony, breathing forcefully through the nose, rolled his eyes and smiled toothily. “Fine. Just because it’s your _birthday_. I’ll be right behind you.”

Steve re-entered the room, and Tony, gazing at the shimmering waters of the cove one last time, followed soon after.


	8. Best Birthdate Ever!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fake boyfriends go on a sight-seeing date to celebrate Steve's 98th

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if a place as ideal and beautiful as the Isles of Baime actually exists, but if it does, I sure wanna go there. The Isles are purely the product of my imagination of what an ideal vacation spot for some R&R would look like. Because I think my boys deserve no less than the most beautiful place for the birth of their romance... DUN DUN DUN!!! Hahahaha!
> 
> I've always imagined that Tony is a study in contradiction: severely sarcastic but also tooth-achingly and classically romantic (if the giant bunny for Pepper in IM-3 was anything to go by). And why shouldn't he treat Steve to a nice sight-seeing date on the guy's birthday, right?
> 
> Still keeping my eyes peeled for your Kudos, comments and any feedback for the betterment of the story as this is still in its unbeta-edited glory. Will greatly appreciate them.
> 
> We're around the halfway mark for the story and the conflict is just around the bend. Can the relationship our boys have so far weather the coming storm? DUN DUN DUN... :-P
> 
> Written to the tune of the "The Way" by Clay Aiken (from way back) on a loop; and here we go...  
> _____

Tony opened his eyes just as his hotel room door softly clicked shut. It was far from sunrise, and his room was immersed in the pale gray light of barely the crack of dawn. He knew that Steve’s side of the bed was empty because who else could be leaving his room at this ungodly hour but the Captain, off on his morning run?

Today, he appreciated it because Tony had some planning to do to celebrate his teammate’s birthday. Kicking off the blankets, he was spurred to action, going through his morning ablutionary routine in lightning speed. He had some people to talk to, some attractions to book, stuff to buy and activities to plan.

After leaving word with the front desk to deliver a message to the Captain to meet him at the beach at nine in the morning, Tony left the hotel to make use of his almost four hours to plan. His hands were otherwise occupied with his smartphone where he was already trying to confer with too many people at once to help him make today a resounding success. He wanted to make sure that this was a birthday that the Captain would never forget.

The best thing about Tony was that when he put his mind to something, he was sure to pull it off in the grandest manner possible. He didn’t believe in doing things half-assed. If something was worth doing, it was worth doing perfectly and without reservations of any form.

Dates with Anthony Edward Stark were supposedly stuff of legend. And he intended to give Steve the full treatment

He was on the beach at precisely nine o’clock, waiting for Steve and trying to convince himself inwardly that he wasn’t doing this because he had some sort of romantic aspirations pertaining to Captain America; he just wanted his friend to have a good time and to have a memorable birthday. After all, Steve couldn't have had many of those, having spent—what—seventy years in cryogenic stasis, and some odd number of years risking his life during a world war and living in poverty. This was the least he could do for his friend. He didn’t have any romantic feelings whatsoever at all towards the good Captain. He had only come from a failed relationship; he’d be a complete idiot to jump headfirst into another one.

Besides, Steve had said he was seeing someone. And the guy was old-fashioned, so Tony was willing to bet that it wasn’t a get in-get off-get out brand of ‘seeing someone’, but a pretty serious one.

And another thing, just because Steve confessed to being bisexual didn’t mean he could be into Tony like _that_! They were teammates and the upstanding Captain probably wouldn’t want to jeopardize good team dynamics in exchange for carrying on a relationship with a teammate even if said teammate was him—Tony Stark—who was absolutely irresistible.

No—this was a purely platonic date. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be fucking extraordinary! Like Tony Stark-extraordinary...

“Hey Tony,” Steve greeted, plopping down on the beach lounger adjacent to his. “What’s up?”

“Hey birthday boy! Ready for our ‘date’?"

“As I’ll ever be. What’s on the agenda?”

“I’m still not saying anything. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say that you’re in for a treat. So... first things first—how about a change of clothes?” Tony offered a black half-sleeved rash guard with matching swim jammer, and a deep orange snorkel vest to Steve.

After several minutes, both men were back on the beach in their rash guards, swim jammers and snorkel vests. Tony wanted to pat himself in the back for the brilliant idea of having this as their first activity for the day when he was treated to a view of the Captain’s impressive lower extremities that made Tony want to smack his lips in relish. Or growl under his breath.

But either was grossly inappropriate for a platonic date with his Commander so Tony held himself back with all the self-control he could muster.

They were joined on the beach by a snorkeling guide/instructor that came highly recommended by his resort personnel. And pretty soon, they were in the water in full snorkel gear, enjoying themselves with the view of the island’s diverse sea attractions: schools of various species of fish, corals, and sea ferns. Their guide/instructor even pointed out thorny oysters on the sea bed. They submerged and surfaced several more times, took and posed for underwater photos, and scrutinized the undersea flora and fauna before they surfaced for good, changed out of their swimming attires and hopped on a jeep for their next planned adventure.

When they arrived in one of the island’s famed nature trails after the short jeep ride where they chatted about the island’s immense appeal to nature-lovers and the experience they’d had snorkeling, there were two electric ATVs waiting for them. They didn’t need to be told twice to hop on them and rev up a storm in the ATV trails in the nature park. On the ATV route, they stopped by an enclosed bird sanctuary, which was home to mostly endemic species of birds, an unconventional zoo/animal refuge where they interacted with the animals, which were mostly rescued chimps, monkeys and Komodo dragons. More photos were taken and Tony regaled Steve with all manner of ‘a chimp, a panda and a Komodo dragon all walked into a bar...’ jokes that ranged from harmless to racy that made Steve clutch at his belly with uncontrolled laughter.

In between stops, they raced their ATVs, taunted and joked with each other like normal, carefree guys on a normal nature-trails holiday. Tony was really enjoying himself more than he had ever believed possible in Steve Rogers’ company.

Their last stop on the ATV was a beautiful and powerful waterfall falling on a clear as glass river studded with smooth slabs of stone and home to freshwater fish that could be seen and tracked by the naked eye because the river water was so pristine. At that last stop, they had a quick snack of fruits, bread and cheeses and afterwards were given provisions in backpacks for a trek through more virgin nature trails to the very summit of Mt. Daramulun, the highest peak on the Isles of Baime.

They were negotiating a soft slope of lush greenery and brown earth in the midst of nothing but the sound of the forest, Steve’s footfalls and Tony’s heavy breathing when Steve spoke up, “this is amazing, Tony. How did you manage to arrange all these activities when you won the auction for my company only late last night?”

“Oh you know... I have my ways,” said Tony, tamping down the urge to wheeze. He didn’t want to look delicate in front of Steve. Especially not when the latter was having a great time, seeing the more natural aspects of the island.

“Are you alright?” Steve, who was walking a bit ahead, turned to check if he needed a break from the climb or something.

“I’m just dealing with the fact that I don’t have a super soldier set of lungs. Don’t mind me; I’m still good,” Tony exclaimed in between heavy breaths.

“You sure? You don’t need me to carry you on my back or something?” Steve asked teasingly.

“Ha fucking ha, Rogers. I still have my dignity,” Tony retorted. “It’s just that my lungs were never the same after the arc reactor. Not even when I’ve had it removed.”

“You know, I ought to supervise more drills for you—jogs, obstacle courses, hand-to-hand training sessions—to build your stamina once you’re back on the team again,” Steve said with a tinge of worry in his eyes and tone of voice.

“Are you trying to kill me before Von Doom does? Because I could think of quicker, more efficient ways to off me. Please don’t put me on a Stairmaster for an hour; I’d much rather shoot myself in the head,” complained Tony, exasperated. “Trust me, Cap. I’m never gonna be the physically agile guy on the team. Not even with 24/7 supervision from Captain America. That’s what I have my suits for. I’m perfectly fine being the brains, the coffers and the sex appeal of the team; let the brawn be someone else.”

Steve actually snorted at that.

They went on their merry way, slowly climbing up Mt. Dara while talking intermittently about different things. Though Tony couldn't talk Steve's ear off with science-y things, Tony found that it was actually quite easy to talk to the Captain about movies and books. It was impressive how Steve had already caught up with the more important 21st century stuff considering how hectic his schedule must have been as The Avengers' commander and everything else he's been busy with in-between.

The view from the summit, when the pair finally got there after about an hour and a half's trek, was nothing short of breathtaking. The island was like an emerald edged with diamonds in a sea of blue green silk. And the sunshine against the backdrop of deep azure blue with feathery white and silver clouds only added to the extraordinary beauty of the island paradise.

It was windy on the mountaintop, but otherwise the conditions were absolutely perfect. The two set up a very late picnic lunch out of the contents of their packs and shared chicken sandwiches, apple juice and grapes. After eating, they lay on their backs on their makeshift mats out of the canvas bags stuffed in their packs. The Captain had his hands clasped on his abdomen while Tony had his clasped at the back of his neck.

"This has been a really extraordinary day, Tony. Thank you," Steve piped up from beside Tony with a soft squeeze of his elbow.

"Don't thank me yet because the day is far from over. It's only 3:30,” replied Tony, keeping his eyes closed while basking in the afternoon sun.

Before long, they packed up their bags and hiked to the other side of the summit where an outpost was as well as the beginning point of a zip line that ran from the peak of Mt. Dara to a lower cliff face located on the other biggish island comprising the Isles of Baime, traversing the expanse of the cove with a total distance of 1.25 kilometers.

“Feel like flying today?” Tony asked by way of a primer for their next adventure. Steve gave a keen, thousand-watt smile that unnervingly warmed the cockles of Tony’s heart.

After they ditched their backpacks, they fixed their strappings on for the zip line with wide excited smiles. Steve was obviously eager to get to fly if only through a nature park ride, so to speak, and Tony was excited that _Steve_ was excited. There were two available lines, and they had agreed to each use one and that they would go one after the other so they could keep each other within their sights. Tony was to go first on a seated position on the harness while Steve was going to go full-on superhero mode—on his belly, on a special harness.

Flying has always been the best part of being Iron Man. The only thing Tony would change, if he could, was the body of the armor itself so he could actually feel the wind buffeting his body, whipping through his hair, and gusting over his skin. He got his wish then, yelling at the top of his lungs as he was pushed off the edge of the zip line platform. The wind was freeing; the forest, and later, the sea zipping by below was magnificent. But twisting a bit on his harness, Tony found that the most amazing aspect of this whole zip line experience was right behind him: Steve, in a harness on his belly, with a look of absolute euphoria—his blue eyes shone like sapphires; his face was flushed quite fetchingly; and his wide smile was the most disarming that Tony had ever seen on the Captain’s face.

Risking the safety of his smartphone, Tony quickly whipped it out and snapped a photo of Steve’s wildly happy face for posterity. Tony wanted to keep it etched not only in his memory but on a piece of his tech so he’d be sure never to forget it. That once upon a time, Tony did something for Steve that made the latter this happy and carefree.

Though the ride was longer than most zip lines, it, too, had to come to an end. When they made it to the other end, they were both breathless and flushed with exhilaration. Before they took off their strappings, Steve sidled up to Tony and made an unusual request: “can we request them to take our photograph?” He motioned towards the personnel putting away their harnesses.

“I’ve a better idea—let’s take a selfie,” Tony said, throwing his arms over the Captain’s broad shoulders, and taking out his phone anew, he angled his arm and allowed the gadget to autofocus on their faces. He expertly clicked it. “There… Captured for posterity,” exclaimed Tony with a flourish, positively tittering at the playful looks on both of their faces. “Let me try the rear camera on this baby. The resolution is supposed to be ridiculously cutting edge.” Tony tinkered with his smartphone, turned the rear camera towards them and clicked. But before he could look at it, the phone was swiped by Steve.

“Hey!”

“I blinked. I have my eyes closed. I’m erasing it,” said Steve, pawing at Tony’s phone in effort to figure it out; he was so engrossed that he had his tongue between his lips. “Can you take another one?” Steve requested with what could only be considered as a goofy smile, passing the phone back to Tony.

Declaring the next hi-res selfie adequate, Tony returned the phone to the hidden side pocket of his board shorts. “Come on, we have to make it to the next stop by sundown,” he urged.

Steve looked gobsmacked that there was more, but didn’t comment anymore. He just fell in behind Tony and started walking briskly towards a location known only to the genius-billionaire.

As it turned out, their last stop before daylight died on them was the famed Sky Hammock on the west side of the island. Built using Kevlar-bio engineered spider silk-hybrid ropes weaved into a secure mesh and extended from one cliff edge to another for twenty meters from end to end, the Sky Hammock was a perfect hangout for stargazing and watching the sunset.

They were side to side in the middle of the hammock, suspended forty, maybe, fifty meters above sea level over a narrow gorge and before them was a panoramic view of the western skies in an explosion of colors—purple, blue, pink, yellow, orange and red, a great fiery orange ball that was the dying sun, and the shimmering sea like flowing silver silk and molten gold.

“Oh my God... This is absolutely gorgeous,” Steve gushed, nearly breathless at the beauty of the scene before them. It was a view that landscape artists would, no doubt, give all their worldly possessions for, to capture on canvas or on paper. Tony could hazard a guess that Steve itched for a paper and some colored pens at that very moment.

The view _was_ amazing, but, gazing at Steve’s expression of child-like awe, Tony thought that that right there could easily give that seascape a run for its money. He must have been staring at Steve for a long time while sprawled on the Sky Hammock on his side, facing the Captain, because blue eyes self-consciously met brown ones. “What?” Steve asked; embarrassment etched in his boyish features.

“Happy birthday, Cap,” greeted Tony after a long pause, free of any embellishments—just simple and straightforward.

“Thank you, Tony. You know... for _this_ and—and for...for—“ Steve was gesturing, unsure of how to phrase whatever it was he was intending to say.

But the genius-billionaire beat him to the punch, reminding him: “there’s still dinner and fireworks later.”

“There’s _more_?” Steve was surprised, like Tony hasn’t been surprising him since that morning.

Tony mock bowed with a flourish. If Tony wanted this to be a birthday celebration to remember, of course, there _was_ more!

They enjoyed the view in relative silence, with only the sounds of the fierce gusts of wind and the lapping of sea water against rocks on shore to keep them company, before Steve spoke up, thinking out loud, “to think that it took Natasha and the whole PR team to convince me to go on this vacation. I could’ve missed this.” It sounded like he wanted to say more, but he stopped himself, diverting his gaze from Tony back to the majestic view.

“I wish I can come back here someday,” Steve continued, wistful.

“You will,” reassured Tony, shifting a bit on the Sky Hammock but keeping his position—on his side, his face angled towards Steve’s general direction.

“Then again, it won’t be the same if I come back here...without you,” Steve jested, squarely meeting Tony’s gaze.

“I’ll be here,” Tony reassured again, pursing his lips, and turned away from Steve to observe the steadily sinking sun, smirking. He didn’t know if he was making that promise to himself or to Steve. But he knew, whoever it was he was promising that for, he was going to keep it.

“Yeah?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.” Tony said, smirking and stealing another glance at his companion. It was a promise that Tony hoped with a passion he could fulfill. Because while he might not have intended, at the outset, to go to the island to spend time with the Captain, Tony sure as hell was glad—though it was something he wasn’t prepared to admit even to himself—that he got to.

###

Steve self-consciously stepped off the elevator at the hotel’s penthouse floor; he had been tugging at the sleeves of his outer coat anxiously since he had slipped into his clothes for the night, not for it being ill-fitting but for it being too fancy. He wasn’t used to wearing formal stuff. But now, by some happy circumstance, he had actually worn these kinds of clothes for _two_ nights in a row.

Noting that that the penthouse restaurant was uncharacteristically empty for a fully-occupied hotel on a fourth of July weekend, he didn’t dawdle but followed the written instructions that came with his suit regarding where to go until he found himself in front of the door that led to the open air garden.

As soon as he set foot outside, strobe lights strung overhead blinked open, flooding the garden with soft, pearl white light. In the middle of the garden was a makeshift square pergola in pale wood, white silk and chiffon—its beams and posts were wrapped in white LED lights; an ornate lamp hung from the center to illuminate a table with place settings for two people; and a centerpiece composed of a fishbowl half-filled with water containing small, white, lit and floating candles in the middle of a wreath of white orchids.

He was drawn to the table though his supposed date was nowhere to be seen. He was halfway through the stone walkway to the pergola when floodlights suddenly opened to illuminate a corner of the garden where a two-level bandstand was, along with a seven-piece jazz ensemble which started playing a familiar tune from Steve’s youth. He couldn’t help it; he gave a perceptible start in ecstatic surprise.

From the far side of the bandstand came Tony Stark with a thin-lipped smile and in his arms was a bouquet of white lilies. The engineer-billionaire looked breathtakingly dashing in a white suit and black inner polo shirt—the opposite and complement of Steve’s white inner polo shirt and black suit ensemble.

They met in the pergola where Tony handed him the bouquet with a pleased smirk and gestured for Steve to take a seat on the nearest place setting. “I hope you didn’t find it hard to look for the place,” Tony opened, casually reaching for the platter of appetizers and fruit on their table.

“Where is everybody?” Steve asked, roaming his eyes about the place. “I was expecting a packed restaurant, what, with it being the fourth of July and all.”

“ _Everybody_ would be at another party hosted by the movement on the other island,” replied the genius-billionaire, leaning back on his seat and crossing his legs under the table. He seemed very relaxed, which was more than what Steve could say for himself.

Steve had been unusually nervous ever since he first laid eyes on what Tony was expecting him to wear for dinner… No, scratch that… Steve had been bizarrely nervous since after having gone on the zip line. And taking that photo with Tony. It was a good thing he had quick hands and seized that phone to delete the picture before Tony could see it. Not that there was anything particularly incriminating on it, but he didn’t want to have to be endlessly ribbed by Tony because of the look on his face in that photo.

No matter… It was a moot thing because Steve had already deleted it. But that didn’t mean he could stop thinking about—and in the process, be discomfited by—it. That look on his face in that photo was one he hadn’t seen on him in a _long_ time...

“Is everything all right, Steve?” Tony asked him with a slight furrow of his brows, breaking into Steve’s thoughts before they could go any further or deeper. “You look…uncomfortable—I overdid this, didn’t I?” Tony, pursing his lips and looking around the impeccably set-up garden, muttered, “dammit…” And then started mumbling what were, without a doubt, admonishments directed at himself.

“Tony—“

“—it’s like I didn’t learn anything from that stuffed giant _bunny_ incident with Pepper… I always do this… No self-control whatsoever—“

“Tony…”

The genius-billionaire kept ranting below his breath; a frown now marred his relaxed exterior of just a few moments ago.

To Steve, it was refreshingly endearing to see Tony Stark so concerned over what Steve thought of the whole she-bang. And though he did think it was a bit extravagant and overwhelming, considering that they’ve been at this—hopping from one activity to the next—since that morning, he couldn’t find it in his heart to tell Tony so. At some point, Steve may have found it to be too much effort for just little ol’ him, but he, nevertheless, appreciated the energy and attention that Tony must have put into this day-long celebration. It was one hell of a way to make it up to Steve for all of the snubs that the billionaire had pulled on him in the past.

“— _I_ think it’s amazing. It’s been an amazing day, Tony,” Steve interrupted Tony’s running diatribe directed at himself. “You didn’t have to do this, but…you did. And thank you.”

Tony stopped mid-sentence and stared at Steve with wide, wide puppy dog, brown eyes, as if unsure or disbelieving of what Steve was saying. Blinking once, twice…thrice, Tony stared a bit more before his face broke into the most brilliant—most genuine—grin that Steve had ever seen on the man.

It was a good thing that Steve wasn’t holding anything in his hands because he would’ve dropped it, clattering loudly against his plate. He felt his breath catch in his throat like he was once again on the zip line, zooming through the cove from a higher elevation to a lower one. There was that uneasiness again, crawling through and enveloping his insides like warm ooze. Tony Stark’s smile was like Tony Stark’s eyes: captivating and panic-inducing, for reasons that Steve flat-out refused to entertain or overthink about at the moment. Let it be a problem for another day. Because tonight, Steve just wanted to enjoy the evening of his birthday with a friend—a friend he had actually missed spending time with, a friend he was happy to be getting to know all over again.

Maybe he could keep saying that to himself—Tony was his friend; Tony was just his friend—and before the end of the night, he would have already begun to believe it regardless of the fingers of disquiet tickling at somewhere in his gut.

“You’re welcome,” Tony answered, lips pursing and eyes gleaming in unrestrained delight. Damn the man and the way his eyes lit up like that!

Just like that, it seemed like a veil was lifted off of them. Steve’s discomfort and Tony’s self-flagellation vanished and were replaced by the easy camaraderie between them when Tony started talking about upgrade designs for the equipment of every active Avenger in the roster.

Time seemed to fly and Steve’s only indication that any time was passing at all was the food in front of him: one minute it was a salad of fresh greens, fruits, and nuts; the next, it was bruschetta topped with scallops and cheese; after that came potato salad and a huge hunk of steak in red wine reduction; and finally, a dessert that was aptly named _Orgasmic Chocolate_ that he and Tony had fun with, trying to guess its ingredients and the manner of its preparation.

At some point the two of them even humored the jazz band to play intros to songs, and he and Tony took turns guessing what song it was. Both of them were very competitive, but it turned into a real fun guessing game with lots of booming and choked laughter, teasing and playful repartee. Steve nearly pulled a muscle, laughing his ass off that Tony kept guessing Tina Turner songs correctly despite being a self-proclaimed death metal/rock-lover.

When the jazz band finished their set and took their break, Steve thought that things were going to start winding down, but Tony, without his usual fanfare, pulled out a package wrapped in white and silver from beneath his side of the table and presented it to Steve with a thin-lipped grin. “For you, by the way.”

Steve started and frowned, slightly discomfited again. “Tony, you really shouldn’t have…”

“I shouldn’t have…but I wanted to. So…just take it—please?” Cringing, the billionaire added, “don’t make me say that word again. One time and I’m already feeling itchy.” Tony proffered the wrapped package anew.

Steve reached out, took the present out of the other man’s hands and stared at it, unsure if Tony would want him to open it then and there. He looked up and found the genius-billionaire considering him, head cocked and unmistakably amused at Steve’s hesitation. “I know I’m awesome, Rogers, but I haven’t invented a gift that unwraps itself… _Not yet_ … So go on—go crazy…”

Trying to keep a lid on the excitement bubbling in his stomach, Steve unwrapped the box to find a tablet of some sort. It was a bit smaller than a laptop display but a lot bigger than a smartphone. "What is it?"

"It's a smart canvas that doubles as an eBook reader. I know you like drawing and reading, so I took a StarkTab and dabbled a bit into improving it to suit your particular interests. Here, let me show you." Tony offered and requested the gadget back from Steve. And dragging his seat closer to Steve's, Tony began to demonstrate the use of his present.

The interface was straightforward. There were only two icons at the very center of the home screen: a paintbrush and an open book. Tony demonstrated by touching on the paintbrush with his forefinger and picking a stylus as thick as a standard charcoal pencil off from the side of the device with the fingernail of his thumb. Stylus tip met screen and Tony actually started a rough sketch of a rudimentary-looking Iron Man armor.

Steve must have had a curious mask on, so Tony saw it fit to explain, "Sustained Flight, Combat-enabled Metal Exoskeleton Mark I—it's a mouthful. But this is actually the first iteration of the Iron Man armor."

"The one you built in a cave. From scraps," Steve said, matter-of-factly, but not without a hint of awe. Sometimes it was easy to forget the adversity that Tony Stark had risen above, what with Tony's confidence bordering on arrogance and belief in his own superiority. But thinking about it anew, Steve wordlessly marveled at this man's hidden strength and passion to continuously redeem himself—ascribe a purpose to his life by saving other people and helping others save people. That while he may not have always done right by Steve and the rest of the team—by being brash and thoughtlessly self-sacrificing like when he decided to carry a nuke through a wormhole or accidentally created Ultron—he meant well. Tony Stark really _was_ one of the greatest people that Steve knew.

"Yeah," was the simple reply. Relinquishing the stylus and table back to Steve, he said, "your turn to go buck wild, birthday boy."

Steve toyed with making rough sketches on a new digital canvas and listened to Tony tell him a bit about the eBook function of the tablet: how it has access to the Stark Industries servers where books in the hundred thousands have been digitalized as part of the Stark Foundation’s on-going advocacy to spread literacy in various territories where a Stark facility could be found; how it can connect to the Internet no matter where Steve may be through the Stark satellites to enable download of any material in any kind of eBook format in a matter of seconds; how it has a built-in dictionary, thesaurus and translator to allow Steve to read books originally published in foreign languages; how it can bookmark to pick up where you left off, highlight quotable quotes from books to store in its vast internal memory and cloud memory, take side notes for more in-depth analysis, and even refer the user to related works or CliffsNotes for better appreciation of books and the themes in them.

All the while, Steve was roughly sketching Tony’s face, wanting to capture the animated expression on it. Tony was always in his element whenever he talked about technology, engineering, and just generally finding out how something worked and improving on it. He always got that twinkle in his eyes that Steve found rather charming, actually…

“Nice,” Tony complimented, nodding towards what Steve had come up with. Steve grinned and looked up to meet Tony’s eyes. Mesmerized, Steve was aware of nothing and everything all at once: his too-loud breathing, the warmth of Tony’s arm against his on the arms of their seats pushed close together and the golden flecks in Tony’s irises...

It was then that a far-off explosion intruded into the moment they were having and the night sky erupted into a dazzling display of fiery colors. The fireworks had begun, and both men twisted in their seats to stare at the spectacle. They left their seats to stand by the edge of the rooftop garden where they had a more unimpeded view of the heavens. Despite being grown-ass men already, the two still ooh-ed and aah-ed enthusiastically, nudging each other and pointing out their more favorite colorful explosions as the night sky was bathed in light, fire and festive color.

After a while, Steve tore his gaze away from the skies to stare at the man standing beside him. He couldn’t believe that it was only now that he was getting a new appreciation for Tony after all they’ve been through together, after having known each other for quite some time. That it had to take an island paradise that was so detached from civilization, so far from everything that plagued their individual lives that had already supposedly parted their ways, for Steve to really mean what he said that day that he saw both Thor and Tony off: he missed Tony. And needed Tony. Needed Tony to come back to where he should be—

Fighting.

Beside Steve.

And he couldn’t be more excited to have Tony back by his side to be the hero that the genius-billionaire was born to be.The hero that he’s always been.

Steve casually leaned sideways to fondly bump his shoulder against Tony’s. Tony turned to him, an eyebrow arched in question. “Best birthday… Ever,” Steve murmured, as loud as the fireworks display allowed. Tony bumped his shoulder back with a wistful grin. And it was all the response that Steve needed.


	9. Once on This Island...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There ain't no better after-party than this...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER WARNING: This is the reason I've upped the rating from T to M. My first attempt at Stony smut, so if it sucks vacuum cleaners, I apologize.
> 
> Also, I decided that this needs one more chapter because future chapters are going to be plot-heavy and I've already written like a 15-page chapter; I don't want to saddle you, guys, with 30-page chapters! Hence, from 17 chapters, we're now up to 18. Sorry about that...
> 
> The details here are purely from my own imagination. I'm a newbie at reading Marvel comics (I've only ever read about 2 comics), so I don't know much about these boys' back stories, likes and dislikes, apart from the superficial ones we all get from watching the MCU movies. Again, I apologize for that in advance. When commenting, just keep that in mind, a'ight?
> 
> I still love Kudos, comments and insights so keep 'em coming. The story is still in its unbeta-edited glory but I try to read and re-read from time to time to keep improving it; please help me out with that by pointing issues that you spot--typos, grammatical errors, plot inconsistencies, etc. I will really appreciate it.
> 
> Written to the tune of "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts on loop during early mornings, lunch breaks and down times in the office... Here we go...  
> \---

“So ready to call it a night?” Tony asked Steve, sidling up to the Captain and stuffing his hands in the front pockets of his trousers after a short talk with the members of the band to thank them for the evening’s performance.

Steve actually appeared taken aback by the question. “Really? Isn’t it still…too early to be calling it a night?”

“What else do you have in mind?”

“Well, if you’re not too tired, we could go to the other island and try to catch the party,” suggested Steve, quite uncharacteristically as Tony had never pegged the Captain to be a party animal.

“That’s a first—never pegged you to be the type to want to participate in parties all the time,” teased Tony, studying the blonde with curious fascination.

“Is this true? Is _Tony Stark_ turning down a good party to turn in before midnight like a proper middle-aged fella?” Steve asked with a sly smirk that made Tony open his mouth in mock surprise and offense.

“You didn’t just call me _middle-aged_ , did you, Cap?!”

“I don’t know…isn’t that the stage in everyone’s life when they voluntarily refuse to play hooky, actually do as expected of them and turn in for bed at a reasonable hour like a mature adult? Because… then— _yeah_ —I might have.” The Captain was on a roll. Once he had got his groove, mouthing off, he could really be one cheeky bastard!

“Hey!—I’m being mindful of the hour because the _senior citizen_ I’m currently out with insists on getting up at the crack of dawn for his morning run,” Tony ribbed, playfully and without the usual bite of his scathing sarcasm.

“Oh-ho now you’re making _me_ your scapegoat?!”

“I’m not making…ah—you know what? It _is_ still too early to call it a night. Let’s go—I have just the place for an after-party,” said Tony, his eyebrows raised in challenge. He plucked the unopened bottle of chilled wine from the wine cooler and gestured towards Steve. “Let’s see if you can keep up with me, _old_ _man_.”

Twenty minutes later as the two erstwhile superheroes trekked through a forest trail lit only by a miraculously bright gibbous moon in their formal suits and leather footwear, Steve called from a few paces behind Tony, “where exactly are we going, Tony?” Up until that time, the only sounds that accompanied their march were snapping twigs, crunching dried leaves, rubber soles scratching against earth and rock, and the occasional heavy breathing.

“ _You’re_ the one who wanted to play hooky, so keep your pants on and just keep up, Cap.”

“You know when I said I wanted to play hooky, I didn’t imagine it meant trekking through the woods in the dead of night, tripping over in the dark and breaking my neck,” continued Steve; impatience edged his otherwise composed voice. “I thought we were going to go to the other island to catch the movement-hosted party?”

Tony turned just a bit, enough to check from out of the corner of his eye that Steve was right behind him, with a loud ‘tut’. “I got something that’s loads better. So just quit whining and let me deal with getting us there, OK?”

Parting the thick curtain of brush, foliage and interwoven overgrowth, Tony revealed the secret inlet sandwiched by two soft cliffs, with pure powdery white sand on its shores, tranquil glass-like seas that hardly broke into waves. A small islet sat about thirty meters from the shore where sparse shrubbery grew along with a majestic weeping willow with a trunk so twisted it was hunched over that its curtain of fronds was already breaking the surface of the cove waters. The gibbous moon was like a shining pearl in a bed of dark blue velvet that hung, huge and breathtaking, near the top of the willow tree.

“Ta-da!” Tony welcomed, waving an arm towards the beach with a flourish. Steve simply ogled at the sight, speechless.

“Some after-party,” was all Steve was able to force out of his mouth in his mesmerized awe after a considerable period of silence. “Is that real?” He asked, nodding towards the weeping willow at the heart of the cove.

“ _That_ …is exactly what I wanted to show you,” said Tony, planting the chilled wine bottle in the soft powdery sand before straightening up and beginning to undress, starting with the buttons of his dinner jacket.

Tony was halfway through unbuttoning his black inner shirt when Steve, done with his initial inspection of the beach, asked with a tinge of panic, “what are you doing?”

“There are two ways to access the islet: by going back to the woods and walking parallel to the shore until we reach a clearing that will take us to a rocky terrain right by those cliffs which should be accessible now that it’s low tide; _or_ we could use the cove water and swim to it,” Tony explained, continuing to disrobe by shrugging out of his inner shirt and unbuckling his belt while toeing off his shoes. “Personally, I’d rather not subject my quite pricey leather shoes to any more punishment. Plus, we’d be loads quieter on the sea approach.”

“Why do we need to be quiet? What’s on that islet anyway?” Steve asked, apprehensively mimicking Tony and shrugging off his black dinner jacket.

“You’ll see,” said Tony, mysteriously, stepping out of his white trousers and haphazardly slinging his clothes and placing his shoes atop a dry boulder for safekeeping.

Turning around to check that Steve was almost out of his own dinner things, Tony felt a tad self-conscious again. He knew he had lost some weight, but he still looked good by any standards with the exception of those set by the man he was presently with. But he wanted to think about none of it. Squaring his shoulders and standing as straight as his 5’10.5” frame could muster, he walked towards the water, clad only in his fire-engine red Prada boxer briefs.

He was later joined by Steve in his black and blue checkered boxer shorts that would’ve otherwise looked ridiculous on someone else. Tony wanted to let the moment pass but he wasn’t a notorious smart-mouth, no-brain-to-mouth-filter asshat for nothing. "Here I always thought you were an old-fashioned, Fruit of the Loom, tighty whities kinda guy…”

And Steve actually blushed at that, bless his soul. “I would think you, yourself, prefer boxers, too.”

“Never with slim fit white chinos. They tend to bunch up in all the wrong places,” answered Tony by way of unsolicited fashion advice, wading into the water with Steve right on his heels.

“So _fire-engine red_ underwear is fine with slim fit white chinos?” Steve asked with furrowed brows but not without a hint of teasing. Again with the sass from Captain Spangles… So, Tony replied to that in the most efficient way he knew: he splashed Steve with seawater square in the face.

They splashed each other playfully while wading steadily into the deeps. Their banter was suspended for the time being as they focused more in treading water and, diving when they reached depths barely skimmed by Tony’s toes, they paddled towards the islet with Tony ahead of Steve by about a couple of feet.

Usually, Tony has trouble with big bodies of water, especially with getting his head submerged, but there was something about knowing that Steve Rogers was just a couple of feet away from him that silenced those demons. He felt safe and, at the same time, resolute to get to the islet with the willow tree to show his companion something truly awesome just to cap off this extra special day.

Both of them surfaced just outside the curtain of fronds, and Tony, signaling to Steve to keep silent, carefully brushed aside the curtain and ushered the blonde to slip inside ahead of him as quietly as possible. Once inside, they were cloaked in semi-darkness again as they tread water, barely breaking ripples on the surface. Tony whistled shrilly, and the willow dome lit up with yellow pinpricks of flittering fireflies and the rocks at the foot of the twisted willow trunk as well as those shallowly submerged ones around them lit up pale white.

The genius, himself, was more than awestruck; it was a sweet set-up, alright. And his face was only mirrored by the absolute amazement etched on Steve’s that Tony could see clearly enough with the light that nature had provided them with. “Told you you’d like this after-party better,” he simply had to interject.

They stayed inside the beautiful cocoon of the willow tree for a couple more minutes, treading water and admiring nature’s gifts to the cove before they both decided to swim back to shore in better moods than when they had arrived, if that was even possible. So high were the two’s energy and enthusiasm that they uncorked the wine bottle to take turns drinking it. Without a single protest from Steve that it was useless for him to drink because he couldn’t get drunk anyway. Which Tony counted as a win.

“How did you know about this place?” Steve asked, turning to look at Tony while leaning on his hands. They were both seated atop a rocky protrusion on the beach. They were still both in their wet underwear, having decided to air dry themselves while they polished off the wine bottle.

Shrugging, Tony replied: “I have about five satellites turned towards this general direction, doing sweeps and just…keeping an eye on the island and the nearby areas. I seriously don’t think this island has any more secrets to hide from me. This place was actually one of my options for dinner. But since I didn’t want to inconvenience the people participating, I had to reconsider another venue.

“I really did want to show you this place, though. So… I guess it all worked out for the best when you said you didn’t want to call it a night yet.” He picked at an imaginary speck of something on his red boxer briefs, still feeling a bit ill at ease that he was spread like laundry out to dry on that beach beside Captain America in his underwear.

“It’s…perfect. I wish I took your birthday gift with me so I could draw this or something.”

“Well, the important thing is you got to see it. You can draw it from that monster memory of yours later,” Tony countered, wriggling his feet and his toes like a kid with nothing better to amuse himself with.

“You know, I actually feel like I’ve gotten to know more about you in the past five days than I have in the four years since I’ve met you,” said Steve after an interval of comfortable silence, taking a large swig of the wine before passing it back to Tony. “And I’ve only just noticed, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not yapping at an AI on your earpiece for one whole day! I didn’t think you could do it. But…here you are, proving me wrong,” Steve jested. “Just goes to show that there’re still a lot of things I don’t know about you, Tony.”

“And we’ve only ever tapped the surface. FYI, no earpiece today in honor of your birthday and in the interest of having a date to remember,” answered Tony, taking a gulp of wine himself and, realizing how they could make their evening even more interesting, scrambled for Steve’s attention. “I know… Let’s play a game. We ask each other questions—you know—for information we want to know about one another. Only—we _cannot_ ask the same question we’ve just answered. You wanna give it a try?”

“Sure. Let’s do it. Ask away.”

“What’s your favorite food?” Tony began.

“Waffles. Definitely. And…this means I cannot ask you what _your_ favorite food is, right?”

Tony nodded in affirmation.

“What’s your favorite…band?”

“Like music, right? Um… AC/DC. Or Nirvana, probably. What’s your favorite book?”

“That’s actually difficult. Hmm…” Steve shifted in his position, leaning lower on his elbows. “Maybe… _1984_ by George Orwell.”

“That’s a really good book,” assented Tony.

“Isn’t it?” Steve continued, obviously glad that Tony agreed with him. “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Good question. I haven’t really given it that much thought. But… hmm… _12 Angry Men_ is pretty good or maybe… _The Godfather_. That’s good, too.”

“ _12 Angry Men_ is pretty epic.”

“Oh you’ve seen it? Henry Fonda’s character was… _sick_ , right?” They talked about the movie for the next couple of minutes, recounting the plotlines and twists, sharing their opinion about the movie, then old movies in general—how old movies were more plot- and dialogue-driven and how recent movies were special effects-driven sometimes at the expense of a good story.

“Favorite song,” Tony went on to ask.

“You’re gonna laugh at me,” Steve headed off with an embarrassed groan.

“It’s an old song, isn’t it? Well—old songs are really nice. They’re classics. Which one?” Tony asked. “ _Come on_ …which one?” He urged.

“ _Cheek to Cheek_ by Fred Astaire,” Steve replied, biting his lower lip—still obviously mortified. “You might not have even heard of it.” Another groan. “Oh—I’m so _old_!”

Tony laughed. Not at Steve’s answer but at Steve’s reaction. “It could’ve been worse. I’m surprised it’s not a _Beach Boys_ song,” teased the billionaire which earned him a poke on the side with a stray twig. “Hey, no poking! It’s your turn to ask, _old-timer_.”

“Your best childhood memory.”

Biting his lower lip, Tony really got into thinking about what and how to answer that. He didn’t have that many, to be completely honest. He didn’t have a conventional childhood with normal parents in a normal family set-up. His was about the most dysfunctional childhood he had ever heard of. “When I was seven, right before I got shipped off to boarding school, my mom—she took me to Central Park. We just sat in one of the benches and ate hotdogs and…cotton candy. Jarvis—he was our butler—he stayed close by, made sure we were not disturbed or approached by rude opportunists or the media. And we just…stayed there. For the whole afternoon. We fed the pigeons and played rock-paper-scissors and hopscotch,” Tony paused, pursing his lips in recollection. “It was a good day.” He nodded, more to himself than to his companion, lost in his memories for a moment.

“You grew up in New York?”

“Yeah. I was actually born and raised in New York. Our old place was this four-storey mansion in Midtown. But after I graduated from MIT, my parents died—and Jarvis passed on, I didn’t want to have anything to do with New York. I felt like there really was nothing tying me to that place—no fond memories, no nothing. So, I moved the base of operations of Stark Industries to California,” explained Tony, meeting Steve’s gaze squarely.

“Your first pet,” said Tony, drastically changing the subject from his tumultuous history to something happier.

“I was a really sickly kid, practically allergic to everything. But when I was…five, I think, my mom picked up a stray dog and took it home. She warned me against naming it. She said I shouldn’t be attached to it because it wasn’t gonna stay long with us. But I didn’t listen to her. I named the pooch Ashley because of her color. Ashley ended up staying with us for the winter until my asthma got so bad one day and we just had to give her up to our neighbor—Mr. McLaggen, I think his name was. I still got to see Ashley though. But she died three winters later—‘cause that winter was a particularly hard one,” recalled Steve, a ghost of a smile on his fine features, while Tony listened, enthralled.

“Your first crush,” Steve interjected, fighting off a grin.

“Aha…I see we’re getting to those questions, huh?” Tony said with mild reproof. He only said it to try to tamp down his discomfiture at Steve’s question. Because he remembered, clear as day, hiding underneath his blankets when he was eleven, reading Captain America comics until the wee hours of the morning; he saw clearly in his mind how he had countless Captain America posters stashed away or mounted practically everywhere—in his dorm room, in his bedroom at the Midtown mansion, in the attic where he liked to hide away from his parents, in the little workshop that Jarvis built for him where he would disappear to for hours on end to tinker with anything he could get his hands on; he had little black-and-white pictures of Captain America, pre-and post-serum, in between the leaves of his notebook; he recalled getting lost looking into those clear eyes behind the cowl, which, Tony had later come to know, was the color of a clear spring sky. Tony Stark was thirteen when he had first come to recognize that he had it bad for Captain America.

He knew that he couldn’t very well answer Steve’s question with a resounding ‘You’ because Tony was certain that that wasn’t something he could just blurt out without any repercussions; it wasn’t something that they could detachedly discuss and joke about in the morning like it was just some random thing. He didn’t want to make Steve uncomfortable. Not now when they had just begun to be the friends that they were already supposed to be. He wanted to call Pepper then and there to exemplify that ‘See—Tony Stark is not so tactless after all. He does have it in him to think before he lets his mouth run out on him!’

Clearing his throat to hide his awkwardness, Tony said, “you know what? Funny enough, I can’t remember.”

“ _Whaaat_?! I simply refuse to believe that—“

“—no, really—“

“—that’s a load of crap! We always— _always_ remember our first,” Steve said, reciting it like it was paramount law or something. “Come on… you must remember _something_ —like, like a name or what they look like, or what about them caught your eye.”

Tony held up a hand to stop Steve from needling him for any kind of information. Inwardly, he was drawing a blank as to what to say because unfortunately for him, he remembered everything about his first crush—his first crush who was, incidentally, sitting beside him in nothing but checkered boxers, annoying the shit out of Tony to reveal the name of his first crush. “Alright, alright… I can’t remember a lot of details but… his name was Shaun and I was thirteen and we attended the same boarding school. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. He was British.”

Shaun Masterson shared the same room with him in that European boarding school when they were thirteen. That very same room where Tony had a big-ass poster of Captain America mounted on the wall facing his bed, which he would stare at for hours on end, imagining…well, imagining a lot of things.

It wasn’t until Tony was fifteen that he actually jacked off to that very same poster of Captain America. But Steve didn’t need to know that…

“Your first crush was a boy.”

“Yes,” was the billionaire’s simple reply to the not-question. There was something unreadable in Steve’s face, but Tony didn’t want to overthink about what that could be so he saw it fit to divert their attention. “That’s that question done. My turn… Your first kiss.”

“This is payback, right? Hmmm…my first kiss…was this girl with the perpetual braids—Lila Conners. I was ten and she was twelve. She lived right across the street and I think she only did it on a dare by one of her friends. I didn’t know her before then, even though all of us, kids, went to the same school. It was just a one-time thing. Nothing about it was memorable apart from it being my first,” Steve disclaimed.

“If that’s the case, I don’t think that counts,” argued Tony.

“What—of course, it counts—“

“It can’t count if neither party was emotionally invested in it—“

“—no, but you just said ‘first kiss’. You didn’t say nothin’ about there being any emotional connection,” complained Steve. And they bantered and argued like only Steve Rogers and Tony Stark could. The wine bottle was already half-empty, but both of them were still enjoying themselves too much over their little game to call it a night.

“First love,” was Steve’s next question.

Easy. “Reginald Cooley III’s silver Aston Martin which I filched from the Dunston Hall lower sixth’s garage, took it apart and put it back together and then took it for a spin to a village 79 miles south of our boarding school with Cooley having no idea that I took his car. I just turned fourteen. I still have one of the spark plugs of that baby.”

“A _car_ , really?” Steve teased with a shake of his blonde head.

“First experience. And by that I mean, _sexual_ experience. And no—jacking off does not count.” It was Tony’s turn to ask.

Steve blushed something furious, but he answered. “It was with this girl—her name was Jennifer. We met in 1942. She was part of the USO tour. We were in Nebraska, I think. She had a younger brother with the 110th. And I think she was a teacher’s aide before she joined the USO tour. She was really sweet.”

“Oooh—to think we had a running wager that the good Captain couldn’t have possibly had his cherry popped before going under. And all this time, he’d had a casual sexual encounter with a USO girl in the middle of a world war. You _dog_ , you…” Tony pestered which made Steve blush harder.

“What about you? Your first sexual experience,” Steve asked, brows furrowed.

“Nuh-uh, that’s against the rules of the game, Cap,” Tony chastised with a sly smile.

“Humor me.”

“Fine. If you _must_ know, it was with the visiting cousin of my nanny. I was fifteen; she was twenty-one. We were all alone in the house. And she just casually asked me if I’ve ever had sex, and I said no. And it just sort of took off from there,” Tony answered, nonchalantly.

“Wow, you were so young!”

“Let’s just say it was curiosity that done popped _my_ cherry,” Tony jokingly replied with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “How about if we take the path of the more existential questions? If you find a genie in a bottle that will grant you three wishes, what would you wish for?”

“ _That_ …is profound—“And Tony’s response was to puff out his chest, all proud-like.

Steve looked to be in deep thought, staring off at the horizon, for some time before he spoke. “My first wish would be world peace. Definitely.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Tony asked, bewildered. He wanted to snort derisively, but held himself back. Steve actually looked abashed.

“We’d be out of a job with world peace,” reminded Tony.

“But then, we’d be free to do what we want to do with our lives. We need not look behind our backs all the time for where the next threat will be coming from. We can keep doing this more often.” Steve gestured towards their current playground.

“If we can do this more often, this becomes less remarkable… This becomes no more special than getting my cup of coffee every morning.” Silence. Perhaps the more existential questions weren’t as full of impact as Tony had hoped. “What’s your second wish?”

“To have my Ma around again,” Steve answered, feebly. Tony nodded once, understanding and prompted Steve for his third wish with a gesture and questioning eyes.

“To find the right partner.”

“Wait… I thought you said the guy who wanted that went into the ice but a different guy came out?” Tony clarified, remembering Steve’s words that day they said their so-longs.

“It’s true. I mean, a family and a farm surrounded by a white picket fence are about as far from my mind right now as world peace is to the world, but I do still think about it. A part of me still wants to find them, and they might not want to have a family with me or a farm. But just…to know that they exist somewhere in this world. I think I’d like that,” responded Steve, staring at his hands.

“If you could go back to a certain moment in your life and have the power to change it, what moment would you choose?” It was Steve’s turn at the more profound questions.

Tony breathed a deep sigh. “I’d go back to that Afghan cave. And save Yinsen. He's the guy who saved me by putting an electro-magnet in my chest. I’m a selfish asshole because even with the knowledge that death is what he wants so he could be with his family again, I’d still want to try to get him out. It’s like he’s the one that got away—the one I could’ve saved but didn’t.

“This is getting too serious too fast. I think we need to pick this up a notch. We’re scrapping the profound questions from here on out. What is…your most embarrassing experience?” Tony asked with a titter.

“You mean, _aside_ from the USO tour, right?” Steve asked sarcastically, and the brunette snorted.

Steve bit his tongue in between his lips and stole a sideways glance at Tony as if gauging how candid he needed to be. “To be honest with you, dancing at that luau is probably one, if not the most embarrassing experience I’ve ever had…”

"You're joking," Tony remarked, shocked, and when Steve didn't look like he was going to take his answer back, asked, "this is about dancing, isn't it?" Then getting up and dusting off sand from his hands and bare thighs, he got off the boulder, looked back at Steve and offered a hand to the blonde.

"Come on, get up." And when Steve looked at the proffered hand with mortification without moving a muscle, urged, "get up, get up, get up; get up before I'm old and gray, Rogers!"

And it came to pass that Tony had Steve's large and awkward hands propped on his hips; his own arms were loosely braced against the Captain's powerful shoulders. In the stance of first timers to a junior prom.  On the beach. Under a bright gibbous moon. In their bloody fucking underwear.

"This isn't necessary, Tony," said Steve in an uncharacteristically breathy voice.

"If you want to find the right partner, you gotta be comfortable with this. You have to think that dancing is really no different from fighting bad guys. Having the confidence that you could beat the bad guys is half the fight already. It's the same with dancing—having the guts to stand in front of another and move as they move, and you're halfway home," Tony explained, beginning to make small movements for the other man to follow or be comfortable with.

Tony started humming _Cheek to Cheek_ to try to further ease Steve's tension, make the blonde look less like he was grinding his teeth to their roots.

"You know the song," murmured Steve with an unmistakable hint of pleased astonishment. They kept swaying to the easy rhythm of the Captain's favorite song that Tony was humming, becoming less mindful of their state of undress but more acutely aware of bare skin against skin.

Or at least _Tony_ was.

Tony Stark had always admired Captain America. _Steve Rogers_ , on the other hand, almost proved himself harder to like, especially after that stand-off in the helicarrier in the early days of their association. They had always been formal and civil to each other since then, joking and bantering occasionally.

But knowing Steve _now_ , having spent these past several days with him, it was as if Tony was rediscovering his completely blind and single-minded devotion to Captain America. Only he was no longer just a poster on Tony's wall of a hot-damn specimen of male perfection. But he was _Steve_. Awkward, straightforward, stealthily funny, insightful Steve.

It was quite easy to get lost in those clear eyes again.

"Spin me," Tony instructed, sounding a bit breathy himself. The Captain, with new confidence in his hands, twirled Tony—not expertly, but there was follow through. And it was enough. "Now dip me," Tony directed again, leading Steve towards what to do.

Warm hands were on the small of Tony's back and on the nape of his neck while blue eyes bore down on brown ones with the weight of the things they weren't telling each other. Straightening up, Steve surprised Tony, sending the billionaire's arc reactor-less heart into a practical standstill, by brushing a gentle thumb against the latter's brow.

Tony wanted to lean into the touch, but didn't, and he didn't know why. There were critically in danger of crossing some line that maybe neither of them were actually prepared to cross. Alarm bells were shrill at the back of his mind. "Maybe…we should be getting back," was all he said, stepping away from Steve’s reach, turning around to fetch his discarded clothes and swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat.

What a fucking coward he was.

###

With nothing to distract him with but the thumping of his heart and the stormy thoughts in his mind about Tony and what happened—or didn’t happen—in the secret cove, Steve was quiet but anxious. He kept glancing at Tony from out of the corner of his eye, unsure of how to converse now with the brunette. They were walking at a punishingly brisk pace back to the hotel as if the devil, himself, was right at their heels.

Maybe it was something he did? He knew the moment his fingers connected with the tip of that dark brown eyebrow and slid down the side of Tony’s face that Steve _should not_ have done it. Should not have touched Tony so intimately, so meaningfully. Because it was too presumptuous. Tony had just come from a relationship that ended painfully; and Steve was in a sort-of relationship with Sharon Carter. Nothing could possibly come out of… What _was_ he thinking?!

“Would you maybe want to sleep in your room—you know—just for a change of scenery? You’re probably so sick of me already and you’ve never slept there since setting foot on the island… So maybe you’d want to stay there for tonight?” Tony asked, hesitant. But to Steve it sounded like Tony was sneakily foisting him off to spend the night in his own room because the latter didn’t know what to make of that eyebrow-touch that Steve had pulled. He felt a wisecrack coming on about Tony wanting to be rid of him, but he held himself back. It was fine with him if Tony wanted Steve to stay in his room for the night; it was probably for the best, at least they didn’t have to tiptoe around each other after what had just happened.

“Yeah—sure thing, Tony,” Steve mumbled, fully aware of how dismayed he sounded. It definitely _was_ something he did… But there was no use distressing about it now or wishing he could take it back. If he was being frank with himself, he didn’t want to take back _anything_ he’d said or done in that cove.

Tony actually looked relieved when Steve didn’t put up a fight or question the genius-billionaire’s sudden hankering to be left alone. “Anyhow, Heather and her lackeys tasked to keep an eye on me are probably already asleep as it is quite late already. So, we don’t have to worry about them,” he said, dismissively. “I’ll walk you to your room,” Tony hurriedly offered as if that would more than make up for keeping Steve out of his hotel room.

He wanted to tell Tony that there was no need to see him to his door, that he was perfectly capable of going to his own hotel room by himself. But he didn’t know how to say it without sounding smart-alecky or annoyed, which he was. And very much so. After such a wonderful day spent with Tony Stark, and one little misstep and Steve was suddenly left in the lurch. Which was funny because— _come on_ , he should have gotten used to Tony Stark by now! He should have already gotten it through his thick skull that Tony was no stranger to pushing people away when things got too hot for him to handle.

They got to Steve’s door without any fuss and much words exchanged—which was anticlimactic considering the day they’d had. It wasn’t as if Steve was expecting more than a polite and warm ‘Good Night’, but it, sure as hell, wasn’t this uncomfortable and guarded silence!

Steve slid his keycard in the slot and twisted the knob open. Replacing the keycard in the wall slot to open the lights, he turned around to face Tony with a tight-lipped smile. “Well… Good night then,” Steve mumbled by way of leave-taking. “Thanks for tonight, Tony. I had a lot of fun.”

Tony rubbed the back of his head with a hand that he seemingly didn’t know what to do with—raking it through his hair, stuffing it in his jacket pocket, and snap-flicking it like he was conducting an orchestra or cracking his knuckles. “Yeah, no—don’t mention it. I had a blast, too.”

They stood there for an inordinate amount of time, unsure as to how to proceed from there. Steve tightened his grip on the inside knob of his door, waiting for Tony to step away from his threshold so he could close the door. “So—eherm… I’ll…see you tomorrow then?” Tony asked, shuffling his feet but making no move to walk away.

“Yeah,” came Steve’s breathless reply. Before Steve could fully grasp what was happening, however, Tony stepped forward, stood on tiptoe and snuck a quick kiss to Steve’s left cheek, right by the corner of his mouth, before pulling back and rubbing the back of his head again, sheepish.

“Happy Birthday again, Steve. I’ll…uh…talk to you tomorrow,” Tony said with a jerky wave before ambling off down the hall.

Steve was glued to his doorway for a moment before hastily closing the door and leaning his back on it, stunned but thrilled, if his rapid heartbeats were anything to go by. Did Tony Stark really just kiss him? Tony kissed him… Tony _kissed_ him! It might have only been on the cheek, but Steve didn’t care. Because Tony kissed him, and the billionaire had looked endearingly boyish and shy when he did so. Goosebumps erupted all over Steve’s arms and the back of his neck. Biting his lower lip, he couldn’t tamp down the wide grin that broke on his face. It never occurred to him that a simple kiss on the cheek from Tony Stark could completely turn his world, ass over teakettle, like this.

What was more surprising was…Steve wanted _more_. Steve felt like there could be more. More than just a kiss on the cheek and a bashful good night. More than the awkward silence that the eyebrow-touch caused. More than the meaningful looks he knew he was giving. More than the wistful smiles that, once or twice, he had caught on Tony’s face. More than that dance in the moonlight. More…

And, all of a sudden, Steve was seized with an overwhelming craving to be with Tony. In the genius-billionaire’s room. On his bed. With Steve’s arm around that powerfully lithe body. His skin against the brunette’s. Their lips pressed against each other’s. He had done his share of waiting for moments like this, some of which he had stupidly let pass him by. But not this time.

He abruptly turned on his heel and yanked the door open only to find Tony standing on the other side with his closed fist raised, getting ready to knock. Steve’s body was on fire and crackling with electricity at the same time when he saw the deer-caught-in-headlights look gracing the genius-billionaire’s face. “Did you forget something?” Steve asked, breathlessly, as if he’d been running all evening.

“I—I… Were you about to go somewhere?” Tony asked in turn, desperately wanting to steer the subject away from him. Steve didn’t know if he was reading too much into things, but he definitely detected hope in Tony’s voice.

“Yeah,” Steve answered. He could barely hear his voice above the thundering of his heart now. “I was going to go to your room.”

“Huh,” was Tony’s very eloquent reply before biting his lower lip in thought as to what to say next. But that was the last straw for Steve. Seizing handfuls of Tony’s jacket’s lapel, he viciously pulled Tony into his room, slammed the slighter man against the other side of his door, closing it and captured those lips with his own.

Tony must have been momentarily stunned because he was uncharacteristically supple and completely accepting of Steve taking the lead in this particular interaction. The only indication that Tony was even still in possession of his faculties was a deep moan from him that sent veritable sparks of electricity to Steve’s heart through his mouth.

Steve, shocking even himself, wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist to hoist the slightly smaller man higher against the door and raked a hand through the soft tendrils of Tony’s brown hair, tangling his fingers, pulling at it—over and over—like he couldn’t get enough of it. Catching the back of Tony’s head and cushioning it against the hard surface of the door, Steve changed the angle of his mouth to taste more.

The first sign of Tony’s typical laser-like focus and enthusiastic participation came when he raised a leg, hooked it around Steve’s thigh and pulled, their groin coming into contact for the first time. And Steve grinned devilishly through the heated kiss upon feeling their intense mutual interest, judging by the collective bulges in their trousers. Their limbs were in absolute knots now: one of Tony’s legs was hooked around Steve’s; one of Tony’s arms was wrapped around Steve’s neck—hard enough to choke while the other gripped Steve’s bicep like a drowning man would clutch at a lifeline; one of Steve’s hands cupped the back of Tony’s head while the other was wrapped around the brunette’s waist, but animatedly yanking at the layers of clothing there. He badly wanted—hell, craved—more skin.

When Steve first made contact with the bare skin on the waist of Tony’s trousers, he broke the kiss momentarily to take a deep breath, abusing that time to gaze predatorily at a totally debauched genius. Tony looked good enough to eat: tousled hair, glittering eyes, flushed cheeks, swollen lips, and disheveled clothes. Before Steve could jump right back into the enjoyable fray, Tony surged forward, tackled Steve—as only the deviously powerful could—pushed him towards the bed and down to sit on its edge, and straddled his lap.

Their lips met again, more intensely than before, if that was even possible—all heat, tongues, and tang from their wine they had shared in the cove. This time, it was Tony who combed his deft fingers through Steve’s hair, yanking it so forcefully it was almost painful so their tongues could find deeper purchase in each other’s mouths. Their chests were pressed against each other that Steve no longer knew if what he was hearing was the thundering of Tony’s heart or his.

“Tell me you want this as much as I do,” Tony breathlessly whispered against the shell of Steve’s ear before capturing it between his teeth, biting and licking. It wasn’t a request or a question. It was a command. A command that, along with Tony’s ministrations to his ear and jaw, made Steve’s body go haywire, particularly in his nether regions. There could be no denying it anymore; his erection rubbing against the fabric of his underwear was starting to be a burning reminder of how much he wanted this.

“I—I…Tony,” was all that he could force out through his teeth, only because ‘I want to fuck you’ or ‘fuck me’ or any variations of those statements bubbling in his throat would sound so crass. So since words had failed Steve, he settled for scrambling to practically tear Tony clothes off.

“Whoa—easy on the goods, big guy,” chuckled Tony, in between more heated kisses and divesting articles of clothing.

Soon enough, they were back to their state of undress in the cove: Tony in his red boxer-briefs and Steve in his checkered blue boxers. Their lips were swollen, the exposed skin on their neck, collar and chest glistening and red with love bites. Their erections bumping against each other, with Tony shamelessly rutting against Steve to increase unnecessary friction.

Tony pushed Steve down on his back on the bed, but Steve, with his hands firmly holding Tony’s face for more intense kisses, pulled the brunette along. They slithered up the bed, still tangled with each other, moaning and groaning in each other’s mouths. Steve’s hardness was just beginning to border on painful. Which Tony, genius that he was, later remedied by pawing Steve’s underwear off.

This was really happening.

A calloused but gentle palm wrapped around Steve’s erection, which sent him bucking up against Tony with a drawn out moan against the latter’s mouth. Spurred by that reaction, Tony broke the kiss and slinked down, down—kissing Steve’s collar, pecs, abdomen, the groove on Steve’s hip before giving attention to his cock. He made a sound that was a cross between a yelp and a whimper, stuffing a palm over his mouth to try to stifle it, when his cock was engulfed with the heat of Tony’s mouth.

Tony gave the same attention to Steve’s member as he did to his mouth: intense and so overwhelming, Steve felt like rainbows were erupting behind his eyelids every few seconds whenever he blinked. He didn’t want to look down to see Tony’s head bobbing about between his legs because he was sure that would send him completely over the edge.

“Oh my… Ton—Oh god,” Steve gurgled, nearly choking on his inhales. The combined stimuli of the pressure of Tony’s grip, the warmth of Tony’s mouth and the swirling motion of Tony’s tongue around the head of his cock were driving him insane. But it took the added sensation of the pad of Tony’s thumb teasing the ring of muscle in his ass and Steve was coming in Tony’s mouth with a groaned cry despite having his teeth firmly clamped on his hand.

Before he could collect himself, though, Tony’s body pressed against his, chest to knee. A soft, whiskery kiss ghosted over Steve’s temple. And a hand clasped against Steve’s free one, fingers tangling. “You OK?” Tony whispered against the lobe of Steve’s ear.

“No,” was the breathy reply. Tony propped himself off Steve’s body to stare quizzically at him. “I’m _awesome_. But I think I’d like to return the favor,” said Steve, hooking his knee behind Tony’s leg and maneuvering them around so that Steve was on top and Tony was beneath him.

“I’d say feel free, but what’s the point?” Tony joked, gesturing towards their reversed position with a smirk. The man was so unbelievably sexy, Steve was definitely feeling the effects of having a superb refractory period.

Steve had never given head before, but he didn’t care. He’d watched enough internet videos to get the general idea. Besides, this was _Tony_. The only way Steve was not going to do this was if the planet got attacked by aliens anew, and even then, he might still want to take two minutes—just for a taste. He didn’t realize how much he had wanted to give Tony this type of pleasure. He was of the opinion that what he didn’t have in practical knowledge, he could more than make up for in sheer enthusiasm.

The moment he first tasted Tony, Steve knew he would remember it forever. The sharp intake of breath from the body squirming before him was more than enough to spur him on even without a clue if he was doing it right. But judging from the mounting intensity of Tony’s moans and the look on Tony’s face that spelled nothing else but extreme want, Steve felt like he was doing alright.

Threading his fingers in Steve’s hair, Tony started fucking Steve’s mouth with wild abandon. And Steve let him, savoring each thrust by the genius-billionaire until Tony climaxed with a long-drawn out moan and a whimper. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Steve swallowed Tony’s seed and crawled back up to spoon against the slighter man and bask in the sexually satisfied gleam of those beautiful brown eyes. He pulled the covers and threw it over their naked bodies before drawing Tony closer to him.

“Stay the night,” said Steve, ghosting a kiss over Tony’s hair. It wasn’t a request or a question either.

“I’d raise hell if after all that you’d just kick me out of your room,” replied Tony, stealing a glance at Steve who was pressed against his back.

“So is that a yes?”

“Hell yeah, that’s a _yes_. Plus—you know…there might be something to look forward to in the morning,” Tony hinted, burying his face in Steve’s pillow in mock shyness but pulling Steve’s arms tighter around his body.

Steve felt his eyes getting heavy. The ghost of a satisfied smile was still on his lips, and his arms were still wrapped around Tony.


	10. This is How You Lose Him.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story is not all sunshine and daisies after all. The brewing war begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of the release of the Captain America: Civil War official trailer, I give you the next chapter, folks!
> 
> Just to give you a heads-up, I have incorporated elements of the teaser in this story--borrowing lines, scenes, scenarios here and there, but it won't be that faithful to the newly-released trailer, but I do have some hits that surprised even myself, which you will see later on. I write my chapters a bit in advance, you see, so even I, myself, was surprised when I got some things right, and some things I did glean from snippets of interviews here and there, but just snippets. This is still my own plot. Please keep that in mind while reading and commenting, a'ight?
> 
> Same drill, y'all. Still holding my breath for your precious feedback! This is written to the tune of "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith on loop... Enjoy!  
> ___

Steve quietly slipped out of his hotel room in his trainers and jogging clothes so as not to disturb Tony’s sleep. He had wanted to stay in bed, spooning with Tony, but with his days on the island dwindling with no clear indication that he’d be able to make it back here in the future, Steve wanted to make the most of his morning runs, making several circuits of the island. He also felt like he needed the alone time for him to really think about the new and definitely more exciting turn his life had taken in a matter of less than 12 hours.

He knew he must look weird, grinning like a loon while he walked out of the hotel and while running along the surf. It was a good thing he didn’t run into anyone because it would have been difficult as all-hell to try to school his face into a neutral expression or to make excuses for why he was sporting a toothy smile wide enough to break his face.

Steve could recognize that what he and Tony were at the cusp of was going to be complicated, not only for the two of them, but for the entire team. But that knowledge has not done anything to dampen his spirits about taking this relationship with Tony to a whole new level. At this stage, though, Steve couldn’t really say it was _love_ , but it was definitely something more than friendship and platonic respect.

It was something that made Steve _not_ think about Bucky and how messed up the world was for _an entire day_ so he _knew_ this was something more extraordinary than just extraordinary, alright!

Recalling the spectacular affairs of yesterday, up to and including their intense encounter in Steve’s hotel room, he felt his cheeks flush not from exertion but from passion. He could still taste a hint of Tony despite the extra-strong mint flavor of his toothpaste, still feel the scorching warmth of Tony’s touches, the electricity of Tony’s kisses, the skill to that man’s tongue that debilitated all of Steve’s higher brain functions…

He had never had a hard-on during a run no matter how much adrenaline was coursing through his body. But there was always a first time.

Steve both loved and hated how Tony could render him incapacitated with the mere memory of the feel of those lips against his. There should be no illusions in Steve’s mind about how drastically things were going to change now between him and Tony. But it was a change he was more than happy to contend with.

And with that knowledge, somehow, the beach looked more vibrant in the gray light of very early morning; the sky seemed like it was going to usher in another amazing day of near-perfect vacation conditions on the Isles.

It was then that the smartphone he had hastily stuffed in his pocket before leaving his room started trilling with the special tone that Steve had assigned to Sam Wilson, shattering the Captain’s introspection.

“Steve Rogers,” he thunderously barked over the phone, inwardly resenting Sam for ruining the shining moment.

“Cap!” Sam yelped with a certain tenor or urgency to his voice on the other end of the line. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you since last night. We have an urgent status report.”

“Well—spit it out,” Steve stopped dead in his tracks and pressed the phone closer to his ear.

“Hang on.” And with that, a quinjet zipped by overhead on the beach and disappeared over the next bend to land. Steve’s eyes narrowed at that. This must be one serious status report if Sam deigned to specifically seek him out on a remote island just to convey a report. So he broke into a sprint to accost the newcomer.

The loading bay on the quinjet slid open and Sam approached the Captain, an inscrutable expression on his face. He cocked his head, a gesture that the Captain should follow him into the craft. “I should have said _we’ve_ been taking turns, trying to get hold of you since last night. He’s been having trouble getting a secure channel…” The loading bay door automatically slid shut behind them as Sam pressed a button on the quinjet console and the small cockpit filled with radio static.

There could only be one person that Sam was referring to: Jim Rhodes.

“Jim?” Steve, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head to try to hear above the static, called through to the other person on the comm channel and was met with garbled noises. “Jim? Rogers here. Report?” Still more garbled sounds of long beeps and radio static, but Steve thought he heard the word _Germany_ in between the burst of noise. “Jim? Report.” He turned to look at Sam, but the latter just had his jaw clenched and his eyes downcast, keeping mum as to the details of the report.

“Cap’n? Yeah… Cap—can you hear me?” A distorted and far-off sounding voice came from the other end of the open channel.

“Yes, Jim. Yes—do you have a report?”

“I found him, Cap. I found Barnes.”

Steve was suddenly filled with dread, relief and eagerness all at the same time. Finally, they got a bead on Bucky! But judging by the guarded look on Sam’s face and the fact that the latter’d had to fly all the way to the other side of the globe to deliver this report, this couldn’t be anything good.

“Where?”

“He’s holed up tight in an abandoned textile manufacturing facility in Dresden, Germany. I’m right outside the complex so he wouldn’t be able to split without me knowing, but your boy has installed improvised signal scramblers with a 2-mile radius, possibly to throw the scent off of him. So I’ve been finding it difficult to get through to a comm channel to make my report,” Jim explained; bursts of static peppering his account of the present state of things. “He’s left the complex a couple of times these past two days, once to make a grocery run for supplies and I slipped inside to try to see what he could be up to in there.”

Steve’s heart was enveloped with a cold fist of trepidation. “Did you find anything?” He wanted to keep the Commander-needing-urgent-information tone down to a minimum, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d been after Bucky for the better part of a little over three years; every piece of information was crucial for Steve.

“Based on what little I could find in his hidey-hole, he plans to mount some sort of attack in Lagos, Nigeria and possibly to assassinate the European Union’s representative to the United Nations subcommittee,” came the grave reply.

“Shit,” Steve muttered, but immediately followed up with a question: “why in _Nigeria_? What’s in Nigeria?”

“That’s another thing we need to report,” Sam finally spoke up again, breaking his silence with an equally grave face. “The Accords have already been ratified by the member states of the UN Subcommittee. The formal announcement of its ratification is in 72 hours. In Lagos, Nigeria,” finished Sam.

It was as if Steve was back in that aircraft he had crashed in the Arctic, with freezing cold water engulfing him, crawling from his lower extremities and up his spine. The thing he had been dreading the most has transpired. They were being forced into a leash and subjected to bureaucratic control when it came to what situations they could and couldn’t respond to or defend against. The Avengers were now—officially—the lapdog and dancing monkeys of the UN Subcommittee tasked to implement The Accords. It was like the _Captain America_ -USO tour-farcical bullshit all over again.

“It doesn’t stop there. The first order of business for the international law enforcement organizations, private armies and response teams—composed of enhanced individuals or not, and ‘gifted’ militia that have been identified and put under the mantle of The Accords— _including_ The Avengers—is to bring The Winter Soldier to justice,” Sam conveyed, finishing with a deep sigh. He probably had a pretty good idea of how much Steve was not going to like it. “Dead or alive,” was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Jim interjected from the other end of the comm channel: “just give me the word, Cap, and I can enforce that mandate since I’m already here and keeping an eye on him—“

“—Stand down, Rhodes,” Steve cried, perhaps a little too hastily because Sam turned to stare squarely at him, as if in challenge; Jim was silent on the other side of the communications line; and even the channel’s static seemed to have quieted down. “You will need back-up because he is sure to resist arrest.”

Sam was impassive.

“Give your coordinates; we’re leaving here now to get there as soon as we can,” said Steve, pinching his lower lip—already calculating how fast they could get themselves to Germany with the quinjet that could go to Mach 4 speeds. “You are not to make a move on Bu— _him_ —until we get there. We would need a strategy bringing him in,” advised Steve in his most commanding Captain America voice.

He was thankful he had caught himself before he called Bucky by his name. He didn’t want to give Jim the impression that he was familiar with the person they were being officially ordered to arrest.

The truth was Steve was already contending with some kind of internal struggle: a part of him wanted to go rogue on the mandate of The Accords because he wanted to personally oversee Bucky get the help that he needed rather than arrest him and turn the custody over to some official body or organization, but another part of him—the seasoned soldier, whose whole world revolved around following orders—wanted to do what he was told to do, so that Bucky would get the help he needed from those who knew better.

One thing was for sure, though: Bucky should not be treated like a lawless fugitive because all of the things they were probably accusing him of having done were brought about by HYDRA's brainwashing. Bucky was a war hero; officially, he had laid down his life in service of the United States government as part of the Howling Commandos under Steve’s command. These people have no business commanding The Avengers to bring Bucky in like a common criminal without giving him a chance to prove how he was merely used as an unwilling instrument in HYDRA’s nefarious plot to run the world.

Steve was distracted with his tumultuous thoughts of Bucky and how to proceed from here while Sam jotted down Jim’s coordinates in Dresden, Germany. The moment the communications link was severed, Sam turned to him, questioningly.

“Do we really arrest him?”

That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? “I don’t know, Sam. We have our orders. Our personal feelings towards those orders shouldn’t really matter,” replied Steve, but that left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“We won’t be the only ones after him, you know. The other law enforcement agencies that have been put under the mantle of The Accords would be clamoring to be the top lapdog of the UN Subcommittee and have some kind of special status with the head honcho. They would be fighting to go down in history as the squad that brought The Winter Soldier to his knees,” Sam opined. “Plus, you know—they’re probably dying to show The Avengers up or something...as a form of revenge for the various opportunities the team revealed how horribly incompetent and unprepared they all were when it came to responding to incidents.” An eye roll was thrown in for good measure.

“I know. Which is why we have to get to him first,” was Steve’s simple reply.

“Do you think he’ll come quietly if we ask nicely?”

“You should’ve seen him in the Potomac, Sam. He could’ve fished me out and done me in while I was helpless. But he didn’t. He could’ve killed me—“

“—he damn well gave it a good try, though—“

“—but he let me live. I’m hoping that he can remember me—even just a little bit. Then maybe I can gain his trust enough so he won’t resist us trying to bring him in,” Steve said, hope tainting his tone of voice.

Squaring his shoulders in resolve, Steve stood to his full height. “We should go now. We have no time to lose. We have to get to him first, because I dread to think what might happen if other people beat us to it. If Bucky resists, these people would have no qualms about shooting to kill.”

“On it. A change of clothes, your suit and shield are in the footlocker stowed at the bottom there,” Sam motioned towards the storage before taking a seat in the pilot’s chair and prepping for take-off.

Steve was antsy just thinking about Bucky. He had monumentally failed Bucky once before when he couldn’t stretch his arm far enough to grab hold of his friend before he fell to the snowy void. And that had been the opportunity for HYDRA to get to him, corrupt him and turn him into a monster. He never wanted to be at Bucky’s side more than he did now that he was practically buzzing right where he sat. He had sworn to himself never to let his friend down. Ever again.

It was only as they were flying somewhere over the Middle East that he realized that he had left so hastily, he didn’t even get to say goodbye or explain to Tony.

Tony. And Steve’s gut twisted in inexplicable pain. He told himself that he would call Tony as soon as they landed and hoped that the other man would understand the urgency of the situation.

Caught in-between immense worry for Bucky and disquiet over having left Tony in the Isles of Baime without a word by way of explanation or even goodbye, Steve stewed in his seat in the quinjet, praying that they would arrive in time to save one of the handful of people he had ever cared about in his life.

###

Waking up was doubly hard for Tony the morning after the Captain’s birthday. Maybe because he was afraid of finding out that everything that had happened the night before was actually nothing but a dream that just seemed too real. So he was already awake, for all intents and purposes, for something like twenty minutes but he refused to open his eyes.

But when nothing stirred in the room to try to rouse him and he got bored pretending to be asleep, he opened an eye a peep to check out where he was.

He was still in Steve’s hotel room, and the sun was already bathing the space in undeniable morning light. Taking a peek under the sheets, Tony noticed that he was still gloriously naked and sporting an impressive morning wood as if in attention should a repeat performance of last night’s festivities be a possibility in the next fifteen minutes.

But Tony was quite alone in the room. He didn’t even have his earpiece to check in with FRIDAY because he didn’t want Steve teasing him about being overly tech-dependent that he couldn’t spend even five minutes without being in constant communication with his AI. He thought he could do the Captain the courtesy of commanding 100% of Tony’s undivided attention on the former’s birthday.

Feeling distinctly uncomfortable without his usual earpiece and bored out of his mind, Tony arranged his limbs to lie spread-eagled on the bed, looking at the ceiling and relishing the memory of yesterday and last night. Especially last night. He could still taste Steve—his lips and his come—in his mouth, like the Captain was a highly addictive substance or a superb culinary masterpiece that Tony wanted to sample again and again. He felt heady and quite greedy that he made an oath to himself that he was going to jump Steve as soon as the latter entered the room—sweaty or no—from his morning run, tear his clothes off, put that cock in his mouth until it was fit to burst, and maybe eat that tight ring of muscle around the Captain’s ass, then fuck that hole—thrusting in and out, over and over—until he explodes, still inside that tight, hot ass and the Captain climaxes in his hand, and then lick that come in his hand in coda. Bloody hell—Tony was getting fucking hard just mapping it out, step by step, in his head!

Or… he could also prep himself now, so that as soon as Steve entered, Tony could jump him, tear his clothes off, put that cock in his mouth until it was fit to burst, straddle him on the edge of the bed and sit on that hard cock, ride it until they were both screaming each other’s name and spurting their come—Steve’s in Tony and Tony’s on Steve’s chest.

He should really stop doing this to himself. They fooled around once and Tony was already thinking about how there was sure to be a follow-up to that like the slut that he was. For all he knew, Steve was probably out there feeling guilty as hell for having taken advantage of Tony, who was supposedly recovering from a recent break-up, and having ruined the trust of the person he was purportedly dating. And here, all Tony could think about was rimming the Captain’s hole.

Throwing the covers off of his body, Tony left the comfort of the bed and walked to the balcony door to stare out at another beautiful day on the Isles of Baime. He couldn’t be sure but it must be around ten, ten-thirty in the morning, judging by the activity on the small stretch of beach that he could spy from his vantage point. Where the hell was Steve? He should have been back from his morning jog by now…

Tony was tempted to use the phone, like a commoner, to contact the front desk and ask after Steve, but he held himself back. He didn’t want to be the clingy boyfriend that he knew he could be. For one thing, he didn’t even know what he and Steve were supposed to be now—if they were supposed to be anything. Until he talked to Steve, Tony couldn’t be sure what last night meant. He didn’t want to be jumping into conclusions or be presumptuously buying an engagement ring and declaring his undying devotion to Captain America.

His thoughts and the colorful people on the small stretch of beach that he could see from Steve’s balcony door were able to distract Tony for the whole of nine minutes before he was turning back towards the room and gathering his clothing from last night. Where the _hell_ was Steve? Maybe something had come up in the wee hours of the morning and Steve was trying to do some remote damage control or something? In that case, he needed contact with FRIDAY to see what could be keeping the Captain from the warmth of their bed and the promise of some damn hot lovin’ from Tony.

Before long, Tony, in clothing that was thrown back on haphazardly, was striding into his own room like only a man with single-minded purpose could. He snatched the earpiece on the nearest bedside table, stuffed it in his right ear and practically barked: “FRIDAY? Report.”

_“You have four missed calls from Col. Rhodes, Sir. The last call was made twenty minutes ago.”_

“Make a return call,” Tony commanded, making routine checks of his makeshift tracking equipment on the couch to see if anything Bruce-related might have been picked up since his last check.

_“I’m sorry, Sir, but I cannot get through to him. I cannot lock on to a signal long enough to establish two-way communications. He seems to be in an area where there is some communication interference.”_

Tony’s brows narrowed. The last he heard was that Rhodey was the one trying to get a lock on Barnes. Maybe Mama Bear stumbled upon the brainwashed ex-soldier and was now trying to make contact with any of them for some back-up. But a question popped up just as he was trying to make his own deductions: has Steve already been informed?

“Were you able to get a lock on his signal when he was able to get through to me?”

_“Yes.”_

“Trace it. I want the coordinates to his current location. Once you get a lock on that, re-configure the nearest satellite; I want bio-readings on Rhodey. Also, I want to know where on the island Steve is. He should be back from his morning run by now. The last thing we want is for him to need some form of extraction from a tight circle of boy-crazy middle-aged women. Got all that, my sweetness?”

_“Working on it, Sir.”_

In the meantime, Tony took a quick shower and a change of clothes. All the while, beginning to wonder about where Steve and Rhodey could be. He was just coming out of the bathroom in a clean, white, round-necked shirt and sweats, toweling his hair, when FRIDAY reported:

_“Sir, I have another incoming call from the Colonel.”_

Once the call was patched through, Tony greeted with a relieved smile that he was sure Rhodey could hear through the static-filled connection: “Mama Bear! Where you at, baby? Why can’t I contact you myself? Are you trying to pull another elaborate hide-and-seek shit from me?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you the same thing? You’ve never been out of touch from your AI since you _had_ an AI, and I’ve been trying to get a hold of you since last night,” Rhodey, as good as, reprimanded his friend. “If I didn’t know any better, Tones, I’d think you and the Captain are painting the town red together or something because up until early this morning, I couldn’t get a hold of him either.”

“I decided to take a tech-holiday,” Tony said, dismissively, before the rest of Rhodey’s statement sunk into him.”Wait… you were able to get a hold of Steve this morning, you said?” Maybe it was just all the static in the crappy connection, but Tony could’ve sworn that he heard Rhodey say that he was able to get hold of Steve that morning.

“Yeah. When I couldn’t get in touch with him, I called Sam and Sam got hold of him—“

“—where the hell are you anyway? What’s all this static shit? It’s the fucking 21st century, FRIDAY—can’t we do anything about buffering the connection or something?” Tony asked, about fed up with the quality of the communication channel.

“I’m in Dresden, in Germany. I found Barnes, Tones. He’s here and he’s planning something big. He’s scrambling the signal where he’s holed up and I’m practically right under his nose, hence, the sucky connection. Cap and Falcon are en route and—“

“—wait… _What?_ What do you mean that Cap and Falcon are _en route_? To Germany?!” Something cold just started to trickle down Tony’s spine.

“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! Get it together, man, this is important. Now, they’ll be here in under an hour but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I don’t think Cap realizes the gravity of the situation. He might still be entertaining an illusion that he could talk to his friend and then talk to the government and apologize for his friend and everything will be copacetic. But The Accords are clear in its mandate that—“

“—hold up, Rhodey! What the hell are you talking about the _mandate_ of The Accords? The Accords are still subject to discussion, isn’t it? I just emailed the Stark Industries legal team to get on top of it and give me a sitrep as soon as I get back to New York so we can get involved in mapping out the details. So care to tell me what the bloody fuck you’re talking about?” Tony, without meaning to, began pacing the length of his room, fully agitated now. What the hell could’ve happened in a matter of several days since they’ve been on the island?

“You’re too late, Tones. The Accords have already been ratified. SI will be getting the notice to second authority over the Avengers Initiative to the UN Subcommittee entrusted to implement it within a couple of days. The Accords’ effectivity will be announced formally in three days’ time in Nigeria,” Rhodey reported, unmistakably despite the crackling static.

“Shit!”

“The Accords mandate that The Winter Soldier is to be brought to justice,” Rhodey said, adding to Tony’s agitation. “Dead or alive.

“And that mandate is the reason I’m coming to you now,” Rhodey explained when Tony was too stunned to say anything, not even a cussword. “The Captain might still be under the illusion that this can be solved by vouching for Barnes’ innocence to government brass. We’re talking about arresting his friend—his _best friend_ —and turning custody of said friend to people who don’t give a rat’s ass about his well-being—”

“—he’s been looking for this guy for the longest time, Rhodey. Can we really blame him?” Tony asked; he sounded faraway even to his own ears. It was as if he was talking from the bottom of a deep well—hollow and dead. He was trying to find Steve’s justification for having left in a hurry. Tony didn’t know for whose benefit it was that he was doing that. He knew the words that were coming out of his mouth, but what his mind had latched on to was: Steve had left the island to go to Barnes’ aid.

Steve had left the island _without even saying goodbye to him_.

At the first sign of danger to Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers dropped everything, abandoned everything—to run to Barnes’ side. Even after last night… But Tony shook himself out of that train of thought. Steve had left the island. _Period_. Tony didn’t want to entertain the sudden squeezing pain on his insides at that. What was he expecting anyway? A teary-eyed goodbye, a forlorn kiss blown towards his direction before flying away? He should be world-weary enough by now to know that having a person’s cock in your mouth and your own junk in theirs couldn’t mean anything more than lust. It certainly couldn’t mean love. Apparently in their case, not even _common courtesy_ before running off to another continent!

But Rhodey was speaking again. “I know you’re no longer on the active roster of the Avengers but until the secondment is effected, the Avengers remain to be under the mantle of SI and Tony Stark. It’s _your_ call—we can do as we’re told or we can indulge Steve, back him up on the Barnes situation and fight The Accords,” Rhodey said, enumerating their options. “Personally, I think we should choose our battles. We can’t blame Steve for wanting to protect Barnes, but we can’t also blame the states calling for his arrest and the rest of the free world wanting to put some sort of control mechanism for people like The Avengers.”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to flush out flashbacks of the chaos, pain, fear and panic that was New York. Wakanda. Sokovia. “Don’t make this out to be _my_ call, Rhodey. I don’t want this to be my call. We know what happened the last time I decided for myself. It was because I fucked up that we even have The Accords to contend with now,” Tony said, rubbing the pads of his thumbs against his eyelids. He could practically hear the tiredness in his voice. It was funny how just some moments ago, he was excited for the rest of today, but now, he was sorry to have woken up to a fucking nightmare. “No… we’ll put this to the team. They can decide for themselves.”

“And the Captain? What do we do if he doesn’t intend to bring Barnes in?”

“We can’t jump the gun and assume what he does or doesn’t intend to do. We should give him the benefit of the doubt that he will do as his duty mandates,” Tony answered, inwardly praying and hoping that whatever Steve would decide, it was to keep the peace. Because Rhodey was right in that they should choose their battles, and there would be no battle won should Captain America go rogue.

There was a pregnant pause from Rhodey that Tony wondered if their connection had been lost. Until his friend spoke up again: “The Winter Soldier is bad news, Tones. You wouldn’t believe what I saw in his hideout when I snuck in. He has a list of the people he’s killed—a _list_ , Tony! I can tell you he’s planning to assassinate at least one more: the European Union representative to the UN Subcommittee—Baron Helmut Zemo.”

“Stand down and wait for Steve and Wilson. If anything happens to you, jerk, I swear to God—I will raise hell. Super soldier or no,” Tony sternly reminded.

“He’s responsible for your parents, Tony. It wasn’t some drunk punk like what you were told.”

Tony froze in his previously relentless pacing. He knew that HYDRA had something to do with his parents’ death what with the information that Natasha had dumped in the internet during the Project Insight debacle. But he hadn’t expected this—that Steve’s best friend’s hand had directly caused his parents’ deaths.

Now, he really couldn’t care less about who had killed Howard. For Tony, Howard died years before he actually did because he had never really felt the love—not even the mere presence—of the man in his life. But it was a different story for his mother. His kind, soft-spoken, generous, long-suffering mother, Maria Stark, who had loved him in the only way she knew how. That while his mother wasn’t a hands-on one, the rare times they have spent as mother-and-son stood out in Tony’s memory like pinpricks of light in the near-darkness of Tony’s past.

“ _Stay where you are, and do not make a move_ ; keep me posted on what your Commander commands you to do,” Tony reminded again, choosing not to say anything about the new information and distancing himself from the sudden tumult of his emotions over the memories of his mother. He pirouetted on the balls of his feet to stride towards the door.

With a last look at the room he was leaving behind—the room that held some good memories of the island vacation he didn’t expect to enjoy but he did, with a person whose company he also didn’t expect to adore but he did—he yanked the door open and said to Rhodey, who was still on the other end of the comm channel, by way of goodbye:

“Vacation’s over. I’ll see you States-side in a few, Rhodey. I’m on my way.”


	11. Clash of Ideals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky reveals a game-changing HYDRA plot. Tony and T'Challa talk about The Accords and agree that they need it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The new CA:CW trailer hurt like a Mother Hubbard!!!! So I thought, yeah well, I'mma get a couple chapters off my chest to add to that pain that y'all are feeling (I'm feeling it, too, trust me...)
> 
> So I took elements from the Ant-Man Post-credits scene as well as the CA:CW teaser. But note that, the story is no longer as faithful to the newly-released trailer as I would hope. Because Marvel is still in denial about Stony (Hahahaha!!). But no matter, I'm not looking to borrow the movie's plot anyway. This is my own.
> 
> Angst and principled little shits abound. If you've read WWW.STEM.ORG, you would say that Tony was in the wrong there, but here... I would have to say Cap is in the wrong, but I'll let you be the judge, as I'm sure we can identify with them, one way or another...
> 
> Let me know what you guys think. Let me know of any inconsistencies, typos and issues so we can all help each other improve the story! I would appreciate it very much!!! Here we go!  
> ___

Steve decided to go with the clothes he had thrown on that morning for the possible face-off with Bucky instead of changing into the Captain America suit. He thought it would look less hostile for Bucky and there would be a greater chance of his friend recognizing him. Sam, in a show of solidarity, went with aviator sunglasses and a collared gray shirt and dark jacket underneath his EXO-9 Falcon wings.

If they had known they were flying into a combat zone, they would have been suited and armed to the teeth.

The textile manufacturing compound that Jim had reported Bucky to be holed up in was under attack from a dark-suited, well-organized and highly trained tac team of unknown origin and command. Both of the newcomers just assumed they were hostile because, hey, they started shooting at them as soon as they sauntered out of their quinjet.

Their comms were still near useless, only spewing out bursts of static so they couldn’t make any formal contact with Jim. But pretty soon, the two newcomers found Jim, in his War Machine armor, deep in the fray. They contended themselves in playing it by ear. But they all had the same idea that whoever this unidentified tac team was, they weren’t there to give 2/3 of The Avengers then present any back-up in bringing The Winter Soldier in; they were after the same thing, only they couldn’t care less about bringing in their target in one piece.

Jim, Sam and Steve were holding their own against the tac team, numbering about thirty to forty. Not counting Bucky, himself, who was also shooting at everyone stupid enough to come within firing range. Everything was all fun and games until, from out of the corner of Steve’s eye, Jim was blown clear out of the sky by an RPG.

“Do we have any idea who these people are?” He hollered at Sam, when they came close together, holding off three or four combatants that were coming at them.

“Think they’ll stop long enough to answer that question if we do try to ask?” Sam cheekily hollered back before unfurling his wings again to be airborne to get out of reach of several hostiles with menacing-looking, long-nosed armaments.

“Jim! Can you hear me? Come in! Are you alright?” Steve asked, pressing a finger against his earpiece when he found a window of opportunity in between the attacks. But there were just bursts of static still from their comms. Bucky’s scrambler was working perhaps too well.

Another RPG was fired too close to where Sam was just standing barely a few moments ago. It was fired from a couple of choppers, one of which was airborne not too far from the top of the nearest abandoned building of the complex and another was idling on the rooftop. “I’ve had it with the RPGs! I’m getting to the roof, Sam. Keep your eyes peeled for Jim; I’ve lost him on comm,” Steve yelled, motioning towards the birds on the roof.

“Copy that! You might wanna try to have eyes on Barnes, ‘cause it’s him we’re here for,” Sam reminded, fending off a blow from an adversary stupid enough to come within his reach.

Steve held his shield tighter against his body as he sprinted through a throng of dark-clad opponents to get to the nearest ingress into the abandoned building. He found the dank stairwell soon enough and with a burst of inhuman speed, climbed up, once or twice fighting off the hostile advances of more adversaries trickling down the building from the roof. From outside, Steve heard another RPG going off and hoped that Sam was nowhere near it.

“Cap…hostiles…holy shit!... Just jumped off the rooftop! ...” It was Sam coming in through bursts of static on their comm channel. “Steve! Did you… Barnes… off the fucking rooftop! Godda—“

“Sam! Stay on him! Stay on Bucky,” Steve practically screamed through the comms. “Sam! Stay on Bucky! Stay on Bucky!” He repeated over and over, hoping against hope that Sam got his instructions through their crappy connection.

He burst through on the roof deck of the abandoned building, laying waste to the door with his shield, and without much thought hurled the selfsame shield to the tail of the bird that was already pulling away from the roof top to give chase to The Winter Soldier who had just hurtled past it. But not before letting loose a rain of heavy gunfire over the general area where Steve was standing, He crouched low and covered his head to present himself as small a target as possible as bits of concrete, dust and rubble sprayed all around him.

Looking up, Steve saw that the previously airborne chopper was turning on its busted tail and careering towards the ground fast. But the other chopper was just prepping to fly off the roof presumably to do what the first chopper failed to and that was to stay on The Winter Soldier’s tail.

Without any room for logical thought, Steve hurtled over the edge, grabbed hold of the chopper’s landing skid with one hand and with the other reached for the railing on the edge of the building’s rooftop, and pulled with herculean efforts. There was only one thought in his mind: to give Bucky enough time to get as far away as he could.

He heard the clicking of on-board armaments being turned towards him to start peppering him with bullets and braced himself. But the volley of shots never came because what did was the loud clang of vibration-resistant metal colliding against the main rotor of the chopper. Steve let go just as the chopper started to plunge to the ground, briefly seeing Sam hovering nearby having just thrown the shield himself to stop the second chopper from getting far.

“Where is he? Where’s Bucky?” Steve breathlessly inquired just as he and Sam made it back to the relative safety of the rooftop.

“Slipped into the other building, presumably to get to the sewers and disappear from there, but he’s got hostiles on his tail, about ten of them. We gotta move,” Sam replied through heavy breathing of his own.

Steve stood up a bit shakily, retrieved his shield, offered a hand to Sam and they were again on their way.

They caught up to the ten or so hostiles in the engineering level of the other abandoned building in the manufacturing compound just as they had Bucky unconscious with his metal arm trapped in a vise of some sort, and made short work of them before they could do anything more than trap their target. Steve was all for freeing Bucky’s arm, but Sam stopped him.

“We don’t know what he remembers. We don’t know how hard he’ll resist. Maybe the vise will help for now, until we know how much of this person is your friend and how much is he The Winter Soldier,” Sam warned, slipping off the EXO-9 wings and massaging arm muscles he must have pulled during the encounter.

“Any sign of Jim?” Steve asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“None. But he’ll try to find the quinjet and rendezvous with us there,” Sam murmured back.

“Unless he got taken out. It looked like a direct hit with the RPG,” Steve grimly said, chewing his bottom lip with worry. “Any conjectures as to who those fellows were? Anything you might have observed while fighting them?”

“You know the funny thing? There were those dudes in the dark vests and helmets and there were also German SWAT in that tussle. Both of them were shooting at _us_ like we were the bad guys,” Sam voiced out his observations. “But I’ll tell you this, Cap, those guys in the unmarked vests were well-trained. They moved more seamlessly than the SWAT did; they carried more sophisticated weapons than the SWAT did. They were the ones behind the RPGs exploding everywhere and the birds that you plucked out of the sky.” Sam paused, thinking about any more observations he might have made. “They might have been working _with_ the police, but I don’t think the police entirely got the memo on what or who they were really after. We should have left one alive to question them,” Sam motioned towards the antechamber where they were met with hostiles they made short work of.

“German SWAT, the lot of them,” Steve dismissed. “Their mandate might have been to trap their target. And dispatch is for another team.” Nodding towards the unconscious Bucky, Steve said, “keep an eye on him; I’ll see what else I can find out,” before walking back to the anteroom to see if there were anything else their downed opponents could clue them in.

“Cap!” Sam was hollering after barely fifteen minutes had passed. Steve walked towards the vise that was still trapping Bucky’s metal arm and watched as Bucky came to.

“Buck,” said Steve. Bucky looked up at him, jaw clenched defiantly. “Do you remember me?”

After a period of tense silence, the prisoner still trapped to the vise answered, “your mom’s name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes…”

Sam looked towards Steve, uncertain. And Steve knew he must be wearing a look that was a mixture of relief, pity, guilt, worry and happiness. Bucky could remember him! Maybe not everything about him, but at least now, there was a spark of recollection on those blue eyes that held nothing but emptiness, ruthlessness, hate and apathy back in the bridge when Steve had first found out that Bucky was alive.

“You’re a wanted man,” Steve informed his friend.

“I don’t do that anymore,” came the soft reply that to Steve’s ears was loaded with sadness, regret, denial, shame and self-hate. “It was never me. I tried to stop it, but I was never there. He was… He was in control and it was like I was never there. I was just along for the ride with no power to stop it…”

It damn well nearly broke Steve’s heart, but, steeling himself, said, “well, the people who think you did are coming for you right now. And they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

“On whose authority? The _United Nations_?” Bucky asked, practically spitting the last two words as if they made him throw up in his mouth. “The United Nations Subcommittee calling for my head is not what you think it is.”

“What is it?” Sam asked, finally joining the conversation.

“Like your precious SHIELD, it has been infiltrated by HYDRA. Zemo is HYDRA. They are trying to make it out like The Winter Soldier made the attack in Hamburg, but it was a staged one. Zemo wanted the European Union in on The Accords and the attack on Hamburg and how The Avengers handled it was exactly the justification he needed—the justification he was waiting for,” Bucky explained slowly, like every word was causing him immense fatigue. “The announcement of the ratification of The Accords will be held in Lagos, Nigeria. Why in Nigeria, when it was not one of the states pushing for The Accords in the first place? Why hold such a high profile affair in an African country where the security situation is very problematic?”

Sam and Steve kept mum, puzzled at the questions themselves and unsure of the answer.

“It’s because the Institute for Infectious Diseases is in Lagos, Nigeria and it currently houses the only known sample of the ENH12VX Mutagen, developed by the scientists of HYDRA while in deep infiltration of SHIELD,” Bucky explained, looking pained as if the mere effort of explaining things to them was causing him some form of physical torment.

“Why do they need that mutagen?” Steve asked, curiosity and panic weaving themselves in complicated knots in his stomach.

“Same as always. HYDRA wants to rule the world.”

“You’re saying it’s like Project Insight all over again?” Sam questioned, taking a step towards Bucky who was still kneeling, prostrate, on the ground.

“Why eliminate undesirable people you cannot control when you can control people to eliminate undesirables for you?” Bucky asked cryptically. “They are going to use the mutagen to create more enhanced individuals. HYDRA has always been fascinated with enhancement or the upgrade of human beings, so to speak. It started with you, Steve, and they did the same thing to me. It was my enhancement that allowed them to graft this…this…thing to me,” he spat out, motioning towards his arm that was still strapped to the vise. “They wanted to get hold of the Pym particle in the 1980s, but they knew they wouldn’t be able to get to Pym as long as Howard was still alive. Howard was going to be a big obstacle to their plans so they set him to be my mission.”

Bucky visibly swallowed, pain now undeniably etched on his face. “I remember it, Steve, like it was yesterday. I could see their faces behind my eyelids. Howard and a woman—his wife. I… I killed them. And I didn’t even know why. I saw it all happen, but I couldn’t put a stop to it. I recognized him, but I couldn’t stop it from happening…” Bucky choked on his pain. And Steve’s heart went out to his friend.

“When the Wakandan King stood in their way of getting precious vibranium smuggled out of his country for use in their research to create enhancements, they set me loose upon him again. I killed a king… I killed _so many_ for them. In the name of their fanatical research to change the world to suit their wants. And with the success of Strucker, they finally had it: a mutagen to create enhanced individuals. And combined with their brainwashing, which they have already perfected, they could easily create an army of enhanced,” explained Bucky, visibly shuddering at the idea of being part of a world that was entirely controlled by HYDRA.

“Then why would they need to push for The Accords if they could create an army of brainwashed enhanced? Why do they want The Avengers and all the other existing ‘gifted’ militia in their control?” Steve asked, but judging by the cold trickling down his spine, he had suspicions about what the answer might be.

“Because you’re the only ones who could’ve stopped them,” was Bucky’s simple reply.

“What’s your proof? What evidence do you have for all of these accusations against the _UN_ —of all things?” Sam challenged, still distrustful.

“None. I only have memories. Bits and pieces of their plans based on dossiers they would give me for my missions. Dossiers which they subsequently destroyed.”

“You’re saying the IFID is in possession of the only known sample of this mutagen? And that they’re going to do the announcement of The Accords’ ratification in Nigeria to try to get this sample? Wouldn’t that blow their cover?” Steve asked. A rough strategy was already taking root in his mind.

“When you started destroying HYDRA bases after SHIELD was exposed to be a conduit for HYDRA, you saw to it to lay waste to everything you can find in their facilities, so the mutagen in Nigeria is the last of its kind. When the IFID is attacked, The Avengers will be called upon to intervene. The IFID will probably be surrendering any and all valuable samples they have—one of which is the mutagen—for the UN Subcommittee’s safe-keeping and custody. You will have handed them what they were after without exposing themselves,” responded Bucky, echoing exactly what Steve had been afraid of. “I don’t need evidence; I need an opportunity to get to Zemo and kill him and his henchmen, with or without your help.”

Steve clenched his jaw, in deep thought. On the one hand, this was alarming if it were true. And how could it not be when the situation was so lucidly explained to them? Was it really so impossible for HYDRA to have infiltrated the United Nations? What could Bucky possibly gain from implicating Zemo with HYDRA? He was a lost, brainwashed, guilt-burdened solitary fugitive who was being hunted, dead or alive, by the world’s most powerful organization. Steve was leaning towards believing Bucky, not because the latter was his friend and he badly wanted some kind of redemption for his friend, but because the alternative entailed implications more horrible to imagine.

“If what you’re saying is true, we can’t _not_ do something. But we _need_ proof to nail this…Zemo,” Steve said, thinking aloud.

Silence. Until Sam walked up to Steve and murmured, “this would have been a lot easier a week ago.”

Steve’s first thought was, “if we call Tony—“

“—nah, he won’t believe us—“

“—even if he did…”

“Who knows if The Accords will let _him_ help?”

Steve took a shallow breath, the immensity of what they were even thinking of trying to do was beginning to dawn on him. “We’re on our own.” It wasn’t a question. More like a realization.

Sam shrugged. “Maybe not…” Pursing his lips slightly and brows furrowing slightly, he continued, “I know a guy.”

“Sam—“ Steve began, fully intending to tell Sam not to get himself embroiled in this matter this time. Bucky was Steve’s problem. It was unfair for Sam to have to involve himself in such serious matters as treason and aiding and abetting an international fugitive.

“Don’t even think about it, Steve,” warned Sam. “Don’t you think I know full well what I’m getting myself into? Come on, man…”

And Steve didn’t say it, but his appreciation that Sam was there was immeasurable.

The trickier part was how to escape the German SWAT still sniffing on their tail. And of course, there was still the issue of Jim being out there. Now, they didn’t know how receptive Jim was going to be if they try to explain to him. After all, the Colonel was the one all gung-ho about carrying out the mandate of The Accords to the letter. And without any shred of proof but Bucky’s say-so, they were about as close to being able to convince Jim as they were to having pigs fly.

Sam offered to get the quinjet and to rendezvous with the two super soldiers about twenty five miles outside of Dresden. They would lead the German police on a merry chase while Sam would try to sniff out Jim, feel his pulse and consider letting him in on the plan.

Steve knew the implications of helping Bucky on this, though. Going against the clear mandate of The Accords would make them fugitives like Bucky. He was already uncomfortable having Sam in on the same boat, but he didn’t want to have to ask Jim to throw his lot in with them, also. Steve may be their Commander, but he wasn’t that kind of leader.

The three met up again outside of Dresden: their German police tails dispatched and Jim AWOL despite Sam’s circuit of the area and efforts to contact him via comms. “Maybe War Machine’s communications array got taken out by the RPG hit. He’ll follow protocol and try to make contact with base. He’ll report losing contact with us,” said Steve, trying to assure both Sam and himself that nothing more serious than that could’ve happened to Jim.

“Do we report to base?” Sam asked preparing to punch the button on the console that would get them contact with anyone else from the team manning their Command Center at base.

“Not until we get your guy and try to establish a plan for reentering the US with Bucky,” was his firm answer. It was as good as saying that they really were going rogue.

They fetched Sam’s guy, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, in Nova Scotia. Scott was star-struck with Steve, disbelieving that he was in the presence of the so-called legend, that while he was a bit wary of Bucky, having heard of the ratification of The Accords, he was more than willing to hear Steve and Sam out on their speculations about the loyalties of the European Union’s representative to the UN.

“So what’s the plan? I’m assuming you _have_ a plan?” Scott asked, sitting down with Steve in the situation area of the quinjet to put their heads together while Sam stayed by the pilot’s console to catch snippets on the comm scanners. Bucky, meanwhile, brooded on the silhouetted corner of the aircraft.

“We need to slip Bucky into US soil without anyone noticing because the best chance of finding any evidence to tie the UN Subcommittee with HYDRA is to get to their temporary HQ in a CIA building in New York City. We need someone who can hide Bucky in the meantime so no one finds out about him. We need all the help we can get trying to find a way inside the CIA facility to get to their servers or what-not and find evidence that links Zemo to HYDRA,” enunciated Steve, occasionally pinching his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger in thought.

“I know this is too much to ask of you, Scott, because while you may be outside the purview of The Accords, this doesn’t change the fact that what, in effect, you’re being asked to do here is tantamount to treason. You can still walk away from this—“

“—and pass up the chance to join _the_ Captain America’s cause?! Like _hell_ …” Scott looked at each of them as if the offer for him to walk away was a sick joke. This earned a soft smirk from Bucky in the corner. “Besides, we have a moral responsibility, right? If we know that something bad is about to happen, and we have the power to stop it—to save others—we ought to, right? I mean, I don’t want to be put under the thumb of these people! I have a _daughter_ , whom they can use as leverage to make me do anything they want. I have a duty to my daughter, to protect her and to not let these bad people have a run of the world. So hell yeah, I’m in!”

Sam chuckled when he caught some bits of that statement, but his face clouded over too soon. “We may have a situation in our hands, Cap,” he segued. “Scanners are rattling with hails to this quinjet. We’re being asked to return to base for an audience with the US Secretary of State to explain ourselves for what went down in Dresden.”

“We?—“

“—you and me,” Sam clarified.

Steve’s jaw hardened and his and Bucky’s eyes met in some kind of telepathic exchange. “We can use that to our advantage. We can appear compliant, hear what they have to say and you two can give them the slip. We’ll try to lull them into a certain sense of security that we intend to fully submit to The Accords, and we’ll play it by ear about trying to break into the CIA building to get evidence.”

“Well, there’s that silver lining to some pretty ominous rainclouds,” Sam interjected with a humorless laugh.

"We all know what we're supposed to do. We know what we're up against. Buck, you’re with Scott for the time being. We’ll drop you off where Scott thinks is safe. Lie low and wait for me to contact you. We'll see you soon," Steve directed those parting words to both Scott and Bucky, _especially_ to Bucky. This was only the beginning of another struggle that they didn't know how long they were going to have to fight. But Steve knew their cause and his friend was worth it.

What Steve didn't know at that time was the price that this decision, setting a convoluted chain of events—a war of ideals, principles and points of view, was about to cost all of them.

###

Tony was back States-side in almost no time, pushing his latest suit to its limits. He bypassed the Avengers facility in upstate New York and went straight to the CIA building where, news reports had it, the UN Subcommittee tasked to implement The Accords was temporarily based until the ratification’s announcement in less than 72 hours.

It was there that he landed barely three minutes before a chopper bearing a small Wakandan contingent arrived, headed by no less than the King of Wakanda himself, T’Challa.

“You still like dramatic entrances, I see,” T’Challa said by way of greeting, accepting Tony’s proffered hand in a firm shake. “Something tells me this social visit actually has nothing to do with me, am I right?”

“Well, if I had known you would be arriving, it would’ve had everything to do with you,” Tony bantered back with a wide smile. “I’m here to call on Thunderbolt Ross.”

“So you’ve heard about the forthcoming announcement of the ratification of The Accords, huh?” T’Challa asked as Tony fell into step beside him. “By the way, let me introduce my aide—Mr. Everett Ross,” T’Challa motioned to the slight, blonde man dogging their heels as they walked briskly into the facility.

“Charmed. Any relation to the brass that I’m here to see?” Tony asked, acknowledging the other man.

“None, uh—Mr. Stark. Pleasure to meet you,” Ross greeted back. Tony was not a big fan of sycophants, and he had a feeling this man was supreme ruler of that tribe.

They dawdled in the lobby of the building, making their rudimentary queries about common friends and family members who were still alive. Not that there were many of both kinds to talk about. But Tony Stark and T’Challa actually go way back. T’Challa’s father and former King of Wakanda, T’Chaka, considered himself a scientist/engineer of sorts also, what with all the advanced tech that the small African country actually has, the origins of which could almost always be traced from the strongest metal on Earth—vibranium—that can only be found in Wakanda. Before the death of the former ruler, Tony went several times to Wakanda and established rapport with both father and son since quick wit and brain for science were traits they had in common.

The messy battle between Hulkbuster and The Hulk during their conflict with Ultron created cracks in the civil relationship between Tony and T’Challa, but thanks to Pepper’s diplomacy, Stark Relief Foundation’s incessant presence in the country that was severely affected and traumatized by The Hulk’s rampage and Tony’s natural fondness for T’Challa, the relationship was salvaged.

“Have you even read the final version of The Accords yet?” T’Challa asked, crossing his arms over his expansive chest.

“I had my AI give me a crash course on its salient points on my way here,” Tony answered, matter-of-factly. “You’re really seriously giving 100% of your support to this?” Tony inquired, curious, as, reading The Accords, it would seem that the Black Panther, like The Avengers, was also being annexed by the UN Subcommittee. And Tony Stark, as an old friend of T’Challa and his father before him, were one of only a handful people who knew that the Black Panther was a persona-privilege-responsibility of the reigning King of Wakanda.

Getting Tony’s drift, T’Challa’s face clouded over, but the latter quickly schooled it into an inscrutable expression. “If it’s what makes un-enhanced civilians and ordinary citizens sleep better at night…. Wakanda recognizes its responsibility to the bigger organization that is the United Nations to which our country belongs.”

“Spoken like a true sovereign and diplomat,” observed Tony.

He didn’t know if he shared the same sentiments as T’Challa, though.

It was because he didn’t like the idea of control. Tony rejected _all_ kinds of control directed _at_ him—hence, his complete lack of faith in the idea of marriage, but, at the same time, he was actually a control freak, who liked to be in charge—which was why he liked dealing with robots and computer programs, that he can control with several well-written coding, rather than humans.

But he grudgingly had to admit, inwardly, that it was this contradiction in his character that was responsible for the quagmire that they were in now. Tony fucked up—big time. He failed to recognize when enough was enough and that there were certain things he ought not to have meddled with. And because of that, Ultron happened. Wakanda and Sokovia paid the price for his hubris.

Of all of his fuck-ups in his life, this takes the fucking cake, alright.

“I would think, you of all people, would recognize how we need a mechanism of checks and balances—so to speak—and accountability for people with… _special capabilities_ , so there won’t be abuses at the expense of the powerless,” stated T’Challa. It wasn’t to rub it in Tony’s face that he had made a mistake, but just to echo what had always weighed heavily in the genius-billionaire’s conscience ever since he had made a mistake.

“Well…at least one of us is well-practiced at ‘adulting’. This is why you’re the king of your own country and I’m just another rich guy who’s not even all that good at being rich,” said Tony, shrugging. “I don’t have any problems about people being held accountable for their actions. Even ordinary people have accountability. I guess one of my peeves about The Accords is _prior control_ ,” confessed Tony, when Everett Ross was out of earshot to ask after the whereabouts of the US Secretary of State and to announce the arrival of his VIP-companion.

“Absolute equality is an illusion, Tony, you know that. We cannot be treated equally because we are inherently unequal. Special people cannot be treated as equals of ordinary people,” T’Challa sagely explained.

“Man, you really are trying to sell this idea to me, aren’t you?” Tony chuckled.

“I’m not. How long are we going to stand here ‘debating’ about this when you and I both know that you have already thought of all of this, yourself. And you are also just as convinced as I am that we need this?” T’Challa asked, eyes twinkling.

Wakandan diplomats and their extrasensory perception… Tony sniggered. “I’m just trying to think about possible objections. It’s not every day I get to pick the brains of a king, after all.”

“You’re thinking about the Captain,” T’Challa deduced. “I know how the Captain’s history tangles with that of The Winter Soldier’s.”

Goddamn these Wakandan cat-ninjas! “So don’t you think he will have a _tiny_ bit of a problem complying with this Accords thing?” Tony has been thinking about Steve non-stop since that morning when he had found out, like a block of ice to the face, that the Captain had left the island without a word of goodbye to him. He’s actually been hoping for a call, a message, a form of reaching out to him…anything. Just an assurance that he was alright, really. But there was nothing. Tony didn’t know if he was pissed off or thankful at that. He really didn’t have anything for Steve should the latter call and reach out to him.

Having had hours to stew with the knowledge that Barnes had been found; Steve left the island suddenly to go to his friend’s side; and that said friend was the one responsible for Tony’s parents’ death, Tony didn’t know how he felt about Barnes.

“If the Captain’s really thinking about his friend’s welfare, he will do what’s right.”

“Well, your right thing and his right thing might not be the same right thing, I’m just sayin’.”

“The Winter Soldier must answer for the crimes he has committed,” said T’Challa’ quite ominously.

“I heard he is being held responsible for your father’s assassination—“

“—as he is also being held responsible for yours.”

Tony scoffed. “I don’t really give a damn who was responsible for Howard’s death. Considering all of the people he’d pissed off, I’m surprised he stayed alive for as long as he did,” he said, flippant. “But seeing as _my mother_ was killed with him—most probably, _because_ of him—that’s a different story entirely.”

Before T’Challa could react to that, Everett Ross respectfully interrupted them to report to the monarch: “We just missed Secretary Ross, Sir. I’ve just been informed that he had left in a hurry to go to The Avengers facility upstate to confront some of its members about an incident this morning in Germany. They aren’t sure when he’d return—“

“Did you just say ‘incident in Germany’?” Tony interrupted.

“Yes—“

“What else did they tell you?” T’Challa asked, interest piqued as well.

“They are keeping mum about the details, Sir. May I suggest that you proceed to where we’re billeted and I can stay here and keep asking around for more information?”

After a moment’s thought, T’Challa seemed satisfied that there really was nothing else to do but get some rest after their long travel and rely on the younger Ross to ferret out more information to report back. He nodded and turned to Tony.

“I think I’ll stay and do some sniffing around of my own, too. I’ll see you again soon, Your Highness,” Tony said with an acknowledging nod of his head. He rarely showed deference to rank or authority; T’Challa was probably his sole exception.

Tony was planning on raising hell once T’Challa was gone, but before he could execute it, a commotion broke out on the driveway and the doors to the lobby opened to let War Machine through, looking worse for wear, with an even worse-looking pilot as it turned out.

“Tones!” Rhodey greeted, stepping out of the armor and enveloping Tony in a usual half-hug. The newcomer looked bone-tired.

“What happened to you?”

Rhodey narrated that the communications and targeting array of the War Machine suit got busted by an RPG, and he lost contact with the Captain and Falcon while they were caught up in the tussle, apprehending The Winter Soldier because other parties were involved. Rhodey seethed while recounting a play-by-play of the affairs in Dresden. He was of the position that he, Cap and Falcon were there to bring The Winter Soldier in with as minimum fuss as they could muster until the place started swarming with _Polizei_ and other still-unidentified players.

“I’m here to see Ross and demand an explanation. How the hell are we supposed to do our job when the response teams who are all supposedly under the control of the UN Subcommittee are fighting each other to get thrown a bone?”

“You just missed him. He’s in The Avengers facility to chew out some asses about what happened in Germany this morning. I thought your ass would be one of them seeing as you were there this morning,” said Tony, crossing his arms over his chest.

“So Cap and Sam made it back, huh?”

“Presumably.”

“I wonder what happened after I got taken out. Do you think Barnes has been apprehended?”

“If he was, this whole building would be shaking with the news.”

“So he got away. It’d be hell trying to find him again.”

“Maybe not. If he’s planning on assassinating the EU rep like you said, we know where he’s going to be in two days’ time. Let him come to us.”

“Unless someone else gets to him first.”

“Does it matter who gets him?”

“It might matter to Steve,” Rhodey said, saying the name of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Tony hated it—that the mere mention of Steve’s name could cause his insides to twist painfully.

“The Avengers is not _just_ composed of Rogers, is it? Or is the sentiment of one member, the sentiment of the entire team now?” Tony snapped, instantly regretting it. Rhodey wasn’t the enemy.

Tony didn’t really know who the enemy was, at this point. He was pissed at Steve for abandoning him after one of the most memorable 24 hours of Tony’s life, however, the situation they were currently embroiled in was serious enough already without involving their personal feelings in the mix.

Rhodey just shrugged. “So what’s going to happen now?”

Tony took a deep inhale and a resolute exhale through the nose and said, “ _you_ are going to the Tower so I can fix your suit—maybe upgrade this heap of metal. _I_ am calling Pepper to get my legal team together. Stark Industries is seconding the authority over the Avengers Initiative to the UN Subcommittee implementing The Accords.

“It’s time we put things to rights and protect the innocents from the most imminent threat: ourselves.”


	12. Alliances and Antagonism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and his team attempt an information heist in the UN Subcommittee's offices. Black Panther joins the fray. Steve and Tony meet for the first time since their island stint. The meeting doesn't go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am uploading the next installment to this baby a day early because we have an all-day party with our extended family tomorrow, Saturday (my time). So my options were update early or update late. And seeing as I don't appreciate being made to wait if I were reading (well--for ANYTHING, really), I thought, what the hell, even if I only have one full chapter as buffer to this one (I am WAAAAAY behind on writing this story), I choose to upload early (there's my point!).
> 
> This fic is getting a lot of action scenes so I might have bitten off more than I can chew when I conceptualized this, but I'm in for the haul and I just request that you bear with me on this one.
> 
> So same drill--typos, issues, plot inconsistencies, please let me know! Thanks to everyone who's left their mark on this story. I hope to feel more of your love...
> 
> Written to "Blind" by Lifehouse on loop (I'm so fucking emo!!!). Here we go...  
> ___

The quinjet bearing Steve, Sam, Scott and Bucky looked like it just changed its course to make a fly-by over New Hampshire. It didn’t even reduce speed and just very slightly lowered its altitude. No one would suspect that it had actually dropped off two of its passengers.

According to Scott, his friend Hope Van Dyne had a small cabin in New Hampshire that was currently vacant, and they could lie low there until Steve made contact again for when they were going to try to get into the UN Subcommittee’s temporary premises for some much-needed evidence.

The rest of the Avengers at base and the US Secretary of State waiting for them were none the wiser that The Winter Soldier was now practically in their backyard.

Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow was rather stoic and hard-faced when Steve and Sam joined her and the rest of the team, sans Jim Rhodes, in the boardroom after a change of clothes to receive Ross. She must be eager to hear what had happened in Germany, judging by the way she kept on eyeing the two of them, but figured that she would hear about it soon enough. Dealing with Ross was paramount.

Ross was even more stone-faced than Natasha when he strode in followed by Sharon Carter, whom Steve was supposed to be seeing on-and-off these past couple of months. Sharon, for her part, looked ill-at-ease.

“I have reports from _three_ different sources about what happened in Dresden, Germany at around 0934 this morning,” Ross said, not bothering to make niceties. “But in the interest of fairness, I’m here to get your side of the matter. So… would either of you—Mr. Wilson, Captain Rogers—care to tell me what happened this morning?”

They took turns explaining to Secretary Ross: from Rhodes’ discovery of Barnes, the state of things when they got there, losing contact with Rhodes, trying to keep in pursuit of The Winter Soldier and what led to the latter’s ‘escape’. It was a good thing he and Sam were able to get their story straight on the flight back. Since Steve was lousy at lying, Sam took it upon himself to handle the more delicate bits so as not to give themselves away, which Steve appreciated his friend for, even more so than before.

After they said their bit, Secretary Ross was silent for several moments and no one in the room budged. “You must have already heard from your teammates, Captain, that The Accords have already been ratified by the member-states of the UN Subcommittee. I am here to formally receive your acknowledgment that you, and by that, I mean the _Avengers Initiative_ , will comply with the mandate of this official document.” He received the bound copy of The Accords promptly handed to him by Sharon and slid it over the table towards Natasha.

“Captain… while a great many people see you as a hero, there are some who prefer the word vigilante,” Ross informed with an expression that was still set in stone. “You’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision. And the world cannot tolerate it anymore.

“The Accords were arrived at, spearheaded and fully-supported by the United States, the United Kingdom, Wakanda, Sokovia and the European Union, as a response to catastrophic incidents in which some, if not all, members of this... _team_ —were involved. New York and Washington. Greenwich. Wakanda. Sokovia. Hamburg. This is a mechanism to supervise and hold accountable enhanced individuals such as yourselves to prevent the pitfalls of these past incidents,” continued Ross. “You will only be responding to incidents if directed by the UN Subcommittee, employing force that is no more nor less than demanded of the authoritative body. And there will be consequences…subsequent inquiries for every response to determine if instructions had been followed or if any missteps or omissions were made.”

To Steve, it sounded like overkill. Because every step of theirs would now become subject to scrutiny. What would happen when they get sent somewhere they didn’t feel like they should be? Or _not_ sent somewhere they actually needed to be? Their own discretion, in effect, has been taken away from them. _And_ if Bucky was right in that at the head of the UN Subcommittee sat a HYDRA infiltrator, then HYDRA would, indirectly, be able to control their activities, point them towards bogus incidents to get them as far away as possible from incidents that really needed their attention. The Avengers were about to become HYDRA lapdogs and Steve wanted none of it. But he clenched his jaw, biting back his protests. Until they had evidence, they couldn’t pin anything to Zemo that would stick long and hard enough. And they would have to reveal where they got their suspicions from and Bucky would be dispatched in due course, erasing any hope of ever tying the UN Subcommittee to HYDRA.

“The first order of business under The Accords is to capture The Winter Soldier. And with the exception of _your_ report, all the others were unanimous in their position that you weren’t there this morning with intent to capture but to aid and abet. Tell me, Captain, what about this morning’s affairs in Dresden could possibly keep me from throwing you and Mr. Wilson in jail for obstruction of the clear mandate of The Accords?” Ross erupted, his face crumpling in suppressed anger. Somewhere in the middle of his statement, Sam and Natasha interjected with loud protests, complaints and denials.

Steve just stayed quiet, lost in his musings. He really couldn’t care less whether Ross wanted to throw him in jail. His mind was filled with how best to get the evidence they needed without exposing Bucky’s presence on US soil.

“—because the secondment of the Avengers Initiative from Stark Industries has not been finalized yet. But you can rest assured that I will take this up with Tony Stark at the soonest possible opportunity.” It was when Ross name-dropped Tony that Steve’s attention perked up again. He still didn’t have any desire to clarify the context of the part of the statement he was able to catch; what he had latched on to was Tony’s name.

 _Tony_.

Steve suddenly had the urge to talk to Tony. He wanted to know if Tony was still on the island, blissfully unaware of this brewing problem, or if like him, Tony had already been dragged into this circus, kicking and screaming. Feeling enormously guilty because of abandoning the genius-billionaire in the Isles of Baime, his thoughts couldn’t help but turn to Tony. Where was Tony right now? What could he be doing? _Tony…_

Before he knew it, they were being dismissed. Natasha tried catching his eye to talk to him, but he ducked out quickly and went to the isolation of the side stairwell to be alone with his thoughts.

It was already getting dark outside as the day turned to early evening. They only had tomorrow and the day after that to try to get evidence to prove HYDRA’s infiltration of the UN Subcommittee and the tainted spirit behind the ratification of The Accords.

He wanted to tell Natasha about what they had discovered, but he was afraid Natasha wouldn’t believe him. And why should she? The information didn’t have a single shred of evidence to back it up except the word of an ex-soldier brainwashed to turn into an assassin who also happened to be Steve’s best and oldest friend, which meant that the Captain’s judgment was most likely impaired at best, and completely prejudiced at worst. Also, Steve didn’t want to have to drag Nat to join him and Sam on the same boat. The Avengers, as a team, _should not_ be tagged as rogue, otherwise, who else was going to be left to protect the people?

Taking out his smartphone from his back pocket, Steve placed a call to Scott’s disposable phone. When he heard the call picked up at the other end, he said without preamble, “Tomorrow. 0600. Queensboro Bridge at FDR. He stays behind,” before dropping the call without waiting for a reply.

It was a long, sleepless night. He and Sam stayed up half the night to research the lay-out of the facility and its security system. It was slow going without the necessary input from Natasha or Vision who were so much better at this stuff than they were. But by the wee hours of the morning, they had a rough plan to relay to Scott, who was going to be the focal point of their information heist.

After a short but intense strategy discussion at the crack of dawn, they all trooped to the UN Subcommittee’s temporary office in the CIA building to take their places for show time: Sam, who would be their eyes on the front and side entrances of the building and ears on the portable police scanners, was staying in the café at the corner across the street from the building after parking the car, where his EXO-9 wings would be stowed, at a back alley a block away; Scott, who would be the one to try his hand at breaking into the databases located on the fourth floor to download information, was going to enter the building through the ventilation shafts in his Ant-Man suit with his ant army; and Steve was going to enter the building in the guise of paying a visit to Agent Sharon Carter to try to keep an eye on the activity inside.

The initial parts of the plan went off like clockwork. Steve went through security check and was told to go to the 5th floor to wait in the small interview room while Sharon was still in a meeting. He swung by the ground floor rest room and found the stash left by Scott in the cubicle that was farthest from the entrance: a small, black coin purse containing an important component for a signal scrambler, his comm earpiece, and Captain America’s miniaturized suit and shield along with two Pym Particle disks to enlarge both should he need to use them. Steve set aside the scrambler component and pocketed the rest. Taking apart his fake digital watch and a fake mp3 player, he fit the mishmash of parts together and slotted the final piece from Scott for an improvised jammer similar to Bucky’s device that made comms so difficult for them in Dresden. It was supposed to interrupt the wireless signals on which the building’s security depended with bursts of interruptive frequencies every thirty seconds. It was Scott’s idea and based on his instruction; Steve thought it was brilliant.

Retrieving his analog watch from the fake sole of his rubber shoes, he strapped it on his wrist and waited for the synchronized time to turn on the jammer so they know their thirty-second intervals. So they would know their windows of opportunity interspersed in the tight security without attracting attention to the signal scrambling. Security personnel would probably just discount the bursts of interruptive frequencies as minor glitches in their system.

They were supposed to be on radio silence unless there was an emergency so their contact wouldn’t be picked up by building security, so with silent efficiency, Steve took the main staircase, planted the jammer in an overhang in the third floor for maximum effect on the entire building’s security, and then headed to the fifth to wait for Sharon.

It was twenty minutes later when their plan began to go belly up with Scott hissing through the comm: “I’m being locked out of the download. They have a back-up security for access to the files that we didn’t know about. I’m out of my field here, so if I’m hacking it, I need more time!” A siren started to blast all over the building, signaling an attempt to bypass security and the initializing sequence for a lockdown. Time was a luxury none of them have now.

“Scott, get out of there!” Steve hissed back. He was out of the interview room and headed for the 5th floor landing in a heartbeat.  “Sam, lockdown is being initialized. Is there any call for NYPD back-up on the scanners?” 

“SWAT is coming in ten. And—wait…hang on—a report is coming in,” Sam voice crackled from the other end of the comm channel. Bursts of static blared through after a moment indicating that their scrambler was still doing its job.

“Cap! Rep…com…win…er…ing…coln Tunnel!” Perhaps the scrambler was doing its job too well.

“Sam—say that again! Sam!” Cold dread began to envelop Steve’s heart. He didn’t like the panic that reverberated in that report sprinkled with static.

“Report is coming in about a Winter Soldier sighting. The SWAT is being redirected to I-495 on the way to the Lincoln Tunnel. Acknowledge, Steve!” Sam was hollering now; he sounded like he was running. “I’ll be in pursuit in 5. I’m getting the EXO-9.”

“Goddammit Bucky!” Steve hollered, pacing back and forth on the narrow hallway. “Scott? Abort! There’s no time to pull off a hack. Get yourself out. Abort, abort. Acknowledge, Scott.”

“Got it. What about you, Steve?”

“I’m going after him,” Steve informed Scott. He had to find a way out of the locked down building. Turning on his heel, Steve sprinted to the nearest rest room to enlarge his suit and shield. If there was going to be a chase involving SWAT with high-powered arms, he was going to avoid the pitfalls of Dresden and suit up for it.

“I’m in pursuit,” Sam reported through the loud whoosh of Falcon in flight. “It’s really him. He’s on a motorcycle.”

“Keep me posted.”

Steve accessed the rear stairwell and timed his turning the corner with their scrambler so he wouldn’t be seen on the CCTV he had spied was mounted there. Throwing his shield, he rendered the camera inoperable and rushed to the door that led to the 5th floor deck that overlooked a parking area. “I gotta stop doing this,” Steve muttered with a doubtful shake of his head before launching himself over the edge and bracing his body against his shield.

Thankfully, he didn’t land on any cars. He gingerly stood up, got his bearings and started running in earnest towards the direction last reported by Sam.

“Sam, report? Have they caught up to him?”

“Not yet. How did you get out of the building? What did you do? Did you just throw yourself out the window from the top floor or something?”

“Or something. I’m seven minutes out. Keep an eye on him, but don’t engage his pursuers. We don’t want more accusations of aiding and abetting,” Steve commanded while running at full speed; he wasn’t even out of breath.

“Isn’t that already exactly what we’re doing?”

After a while, another report came in from Sam; one that was anything but forthcoming. “Cap, I’m picking up another party in pursuit… _Holy shit_! He just knocked your guy off the motorcycle!”

“Police?”

“Looks like Enhanced, judging by how fast he’s running. Clad in all-black with— _goddamn_ —silver claws!”

“Say that again? Is it just one party? Male?”

“Confirmed. He’s got goddamn _silver claws_ , Cap!”

Steve, soon enough, saw for himself what Sam was going on about as they ran into the tunnel. It was definitely male. Limber and fast. Clad all in black. With his face covered. And claws. So Sam was not exaggerating. They ran over speeding cars, with Steve running after the black-clad Enhanced and the latter chasing after Bucky through the bowels of the tunnel, eerily bathed in pale yellow light.

He was gaining on the black-clad stranger when a volley of gunshots erupted ahead of them. Steve saw Bucky and the pursuing Enhanced scamper off their original direction to escape being riddled with bullets while Steve just raised his shield.

When he lowered his shield, the stranger in black was gone and he and Bucky were surrounded by black, official looking Audis with high powered arms pointed at them. He held out his hand to hold Bucky back from any efforts to resist and slung the shield behind his back in seeming surrender. Between him and Bucky, they could probably fight these people, but he really didn’t want to harm them or provoke them into peppering Bucky with bullets when he was painfully vulnerable in nothing but a filthy red hoodie, dark jacket and tattered jeans.

But like a well-timed intervention, an Audi on their right exploded into a heap of fiery metal, and his and Bucky’s eyes met for the briefest of moments in silent communication before Bucky tucked and rolled to a nearby manhole, and disappeared beneath it in the ensuing melee while Steve ran to the tunnel's access hatch to his left, destroyed its lock with his shield and slipped through it into a dark maintenance shaft.

He ran. And ran. And ran, wanting to put considerable space between him and the armed men who had cornered them. He wished fervently that Bucky and Sam had gotten away. Not to mention Scott. If Sam and Scott were apprehended, Steve didn’t know how his conscience could take it, when they were only involved in this mess because of him. And his blind need to protect Bucky at all costs.

The silence in the maintenance shaft was shattered when the old steel door, separating two sections of the tunnel, rumbled with what sounded like a small explosion. He turned, considered going back, but he knew that he couldn’t. He was just going to have to prevail with this opponent, and so he raised his shield in anticipation.

The door slid open, and from the darkness of the other side came the bright eyes, hulking red and gold armor of Iron Man.

###

Tony’s face plate and helmet slid off his head to slot back at the rear of the armor, revealing his face to a defensive-looking Steve with his guarded eyes and shield up like he had been expecting to be blown to kingdom come. The way Steve was now looked nothing like the Steve he was just with on the island barely 24 hours ago.

“Captain,” Tony greeted, keeping his voice as neutral and as emotionless as he could. “You seem a little defensive,” he observed.

“Well, it’s been a long day,” Steve answered. “Believe it or not.” Something inscrutable flashed in those blue eyes, but it was gone too quickly that Tony dismissed it with a clench of his jaw.

“I believe you. You’re not the only one who’s been having a long day for a couple days now,” Tony answered, wanting to go for amusing but overshooting it, by far, to end up as sarcasm.

It was true. He hadn’t slept at all last night because in between video conferencing with his lawyers who were all shamelessly dressed in their pajamas while talking to him, and fixing War Machine, there was no time for something as plebian as sleep.

During the wee hours of the morning, he had parked himself in front of his endless banks of holo-screens, issuing command after command to FRIDAY to use all available resources to look for Barnes, so that Tony could slap any evidence of the fugitive’s whereabouts he might pick up against the side of Thunderbolt Ross’ head so the latter could lay off his teammates. It was for this persistent vigil that Tony was first at picking up Barnes’ presence just as he hit the I-495.

Acting quickly, Tony suited up in his latest Iron Man armor and was in pursuit of the wanted man. But it dawned on him fairly quickly that it was going to be more complicated than he had anticipated when FRIDAY picked up Falcon, Black Panther and Captain America in a game of Tag-You’re-It all over in the Lincoln Tunnel and surrounding airspace. He asked FRIDAY for the schematics of the tunnel to look for a maintenance shaft as another means to get himself inside.

He couldn’t be entirely sure about what went on in the bowels of the tunnel, but he had stumbled into Captain America instead of his target.

“Mind telling me what you’re doing here, Cap?”

“Same as you… To—Iron Man.”

“Where is he, Steve?” Tony, after a considerable pause, decided to go a different route. “Where’s Barnes?”

“I don’t know,” said Steve, and Tony couldn’t tell, for the life of him, if the former was lying or not.

_“Sir, Secretary Ross demands that all Avengers currently on the field should report immediately to the temporary offices of the UN Subcommittee.”_

“How pissed off is he, FRIDAY?” Tony asked, not taking his eyes off Steve.

_“I couldn’t discern, Sir. But he seemed very distressed about Sgt. Barnes’ presence on US soil, as well as the attempted hack of the UN Subcommittee’s files this morning.”_

“Shall we go see what the Thunderbolt is thundering about, Captain?”

The silence was stifling as they made their way back to the highway, running perpendicular to the Lincoln Tunnel where FRIDAY conveniently directed a quinjet to wait for transport. All the while, Tony stole surreptitious glances at Steve, wanting to catch some sort of look of entreaty or apology from the blonde. But there was nothing there Steve kept his eyes downcast the whole time, wordlessly following Tony to the other end of the maintenance shaft.

The first real reaction from Steve came when he saw Sam Wilson waiting in the transport quinjet with T’Challa who was still in the Black Panther undersuit. Steve’s face broke into obvious relief when he clapped Sam’s shoulder. Tony watched, with a growing lump in his throat, as the two got into a whispered conversation. He didn’t know what it was he was waiting for from Steve; he didn’t know why there was this obstruction in his throat that was making it difficult for him to breathe while watching Steve show more emotion when he saw Sam than when he saw Tony.

Tony didn’t know how long he had been watching Sam and Steve’s whispered exchange, but when Steve finally turned to look at him with a bit more life to those blue eyes of his, Tony inwardly shook himself out of his own stupor. Licking his lips, Tony turned to T’Challa and asked, “you can fly this thing to the UN Subcommittee offices, right?”

T’Challa nodded once, wise enough to know not to ask anything more.

“Tony—“ Steve began, extending a hand towards the brunette.

“I think I’d rather fly than ride this. I’ll see you there, T’Challa,” Tony interrupted, ignoring Steve completely. But the last thing he saw before his helmet and faceplate unfurled to cover his face was entreaty and a hint of the Steve he had gotten to know on the island in those deep blue eyes.

The flight to the CIA building was spent barking orders to FRIDAY to keep using the same resources to scour the eastern seaboard for Barnes. He didn’t want any intervals of silence that would just make him dwell on the look on Steve’s face in the quinjet, or the defensive suspicion when Tony accosted him in the maintenance shaft, or the fact that Steve left him like useless garbage on the island, or the feel of Steve’s lips, or the unguarded smile and shining blue eyes—stop! Fucking stop!

Tony squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled through the nose, angry at himself. What had happened on the island was apparently no skin off Steve’s nose, so Tony couldn’t understand why it should affect _him_.

He was the first to arrive at the CIA building so he was already in the big boardroom overlooking the building’s entrance hall, wearing a three-piece suit when Steve and Sam entered astride T’Challa. They were received by Sharon Carter and Everett Ross. Tony watched as SWAT entered, carrying Sam and Steve’s equipment: the shield and the EXO-9 wings and turned the same over to UN Subcommittee lackeys. He could only imagine how _that_ would go down with Falcon and the Captain.

Steve raised his head and blue eyes sought out brown ones. There was still that look of entreaty in those eyes, which even through reinforced glass and from a height of one storey, Tony could still see. Clenching his jaw to keep himself in check from showing any kind of emotion, Tony met those eyes squarely before turning away with what he hoped was indifference written on his own face.

“Where are they taking my wings and Cap’s shield?” Wilson demanded as he strode into the boardroom where Tony was already calmly lounged on a swivel chair.

“They’re taking custody of it as part of the mandate of The Accords,” came Tony’s calm answer.

“And I suppose you will also have to give them custody of your suits because you are all about following the _mandate of The Accords_ , right?” Sam asked with a taint of contempt, as Steve entered, closely followed by Ross and Carter.

“No,” Tony answered, cheekily. “My suits were not—and _will never be_ —government property, unlike your wings and Cap’s shield which came into existence pursuant to government commissions. To this day, their patents are held by the US government. So… I’m sorry to have to inform you that these guys are entitled to take possession of them,” explained Tony, actively avoiding having to look into Steve’s eyes while he explained.

“That’s bullsh—“ Sam began, but, noticing that Ross and Carter were in the room, held back his tongue. “That’s _cold_ , man.”

“Warmer than jail,” Tony interjected, playing with the swivel chair he was sitting on like a carefree child.

“ _Jail_? What are you talking about jail?” Sam asked again, looking at the various faces in the boardroom.

“Early yesterday morning, The Winter Soldier was last believed to have been in Dresden, Germany, and the two of you were positively identified to have been in the same place, engaging teams with orders to bring the fugitive in, and last seen close at the wanted man’s tail. And barely 24 hours later the said fugitive was spied traversing the I-495 on _goddamned_ US soil,” Ross explained, barely containing his anger—like a rattling lid to a pot with water on a rolling boil. “This morning, an attempt was made to download UN Subcommittee files and a lockdown was initiated. Captain Rogers was _inside_ the building during this fiasco, but was able to evade the lockdown to be in pursuit of The Winter Soldier again. _Incidentally_ , the said fugitive was _again_ able to escape our clutches.

“Now, I can’t pin anything definite on you, people, right now, but these coincidences are too obvious and recurrent for the UN Subcommittee to ignore. Mr. Stark here was able to convince me not to incarcerate the two of you for breach of The Accords, but you are grounded for the next 48 hours; you’re staying here in the CIA building where we can keep a close eye on you,” Ross, still evidently displeased, motioned towards Falcon and the Captain.

Steve finally looked up from intense study of the clasped hands on his lap to meet Ross’ eyes. It was the first sign of life that Tony had seen on Steve since the latter entered the boardroom. “You can’t do this, Secretary Ross.”

Ross stood up, snappily, and buttoned his jacket “Captain,” he spat as he was leaving, closely followed by Carter, whose eyes were downcast the whole time and refused to meet anyone’s stare. “I just did.”

Sam hopped to, as well, following the pair that just left, presumably to continue reasoning with them for some kind of reprieve, and leaving Steve and Tony alone in the boardroom.

Thinking that he should be the bigger man and leave because there was something distinctly uncomfortable about them being in the same room together, Tony stood up and walked past Steve towards the boardroom door. But froze in his tracks when Steve asked, “are you in favor of The Accords?”

Clenching his jaw, he faced Steve with what he hoped was a neutral expression. “Aren’t you?” He narrowed his eyes when he saw the defiance clearly writ on the Captain’s visage. “Of course, you aren’t. I shouldn’t be surprised, I mean, when have we ever agreed on something?”

They have. They agreed on something _that_ night, otherwise nothing would’ve happened and Tony wouldn’t be fucking thinking about it now! But he kept to the program. “We _need_ The Accords as a mechanism for checks and balances, for oversight of people who may be too powerful for their own good—whose abilities can harm more than help. Because if we can’t accept our limitations, we’re no better than the bad guys,” said Tony, walking back to stand within Steve’s reaching distance.

“That’s not the way I see it,” Steve stubbornly replied. He fidgeted and gave a cursory study of the space somewhere by the side of Tony’s head, which when the latter turned to see for himself, featured a CCTV camera mounted on the ceiling above the boardroom door. Tony’s brows furrowed in curiosity at that. What could Steve be wary of cameras for? What _was_ going on?

“They mean to control us but who controls _them_? Ever think about that?” Steve hissed as if in challenge.

“Is this really about our _freedom_ or is this about your _friend_?” Tony hated to bring it up, because to his own ears, he sounded like an irrationally jealous paramour who was jilted in favor of someone more beloved.

“This has _nothing_ to do with him,” defended Steve. “But this has _everything_ to do with the people you’re putting in control—how sure are you that they’re after the greater good? How can it be for the greater good if they use The Avengers like lapdogs, to command and tempt with a bone as they see fit?”

Scoffing and with a humorless grin, Tony shook his head slightly. Steve was a fucking terrible liar, alright. Because while it might not be entirely about Barnes, Tony could see in those blue eyes, sparkling with rebelliousness, that this still had a bit to do with wanting to redeem his friend. “You know sometimes—I want to punch you in your perfect teeth.” Shit, that didn’t come out right at all…

“There’s _nothing_ you can do for your _friend_ but to turn him in, so he can be helped by people who actually know what they’re doing,” retorted Tony. “Where’s he, Cap? Where’s Barnes?”

“I don’t know where he is. And even if I did, I won’t tell you.”

And it hurt Tony more than he was prepared to come to terms with. He didn’t know why. Maybe because, like always, he and Steve were standing at cross purposes again. It was like everything they’d come to know about the other became insignificant. It was then that it dawned on Tony that it was better this way—perhaps, it was _meant_ to be this way—that what they had on that island was left at that and it never took off, because in no universe was Tony Stark ever going to come first in Steven Rogers’ life.

“Suit yourself. Enjoy the next 48 hours, twiddling your thumbs,” Tony spat, turning on his heel to walk away when Steve caught his wrist.

“You didn’t give in to them when they wanted your suits before and you said you would _never_ give it to them. You’ve never trusted them, Tony. So what gives? Why are you siding with The Accords now?”

“I never trusted them—correct. And I never will. But here’s the rub: _I don’t trust myself either_ ,” said Tony, his wrist within Steve’s hand going slack. “You once told me that I am one of the greatest people you know, and yet…all this time, I’ve been trying—and failing—to make things right. _This_ …is how things will be made right,” said Tony, mustering his courage to look into Steve’s blue eyes and not waver in his resolve.

“This organization—the one that came up with The Accords, it’s not what it’s supposed to be, Tony.” Steve clutched at Tony’s wrist tighter, like he was trying to hold on to a slipping lifeline. “Don’t second the Avengers Initiative to these people. Don’t give them what they want,” implored Steve. There it was again, the hint of the Steve he had gotten to know— _his_ Steve, Tony’s Steve, in those big, blue orbs.

Tony wrenched his wrist out of Steve’s grasp, blinked and schooled his breaths into even, disinterested ones to calm the furious beating of his heart. He thought about the consensus he had arrived at with his lawyers very early that morning to execute the secondment papers in favor of the UN Subcommittee, which was the same bone he had dangled in front of Ross to keep Sam and Steve from being thrown in stockade and labelled abettors to an international fugitive.

“I already did,” stated Tony, bitterly, before leaving Steve alone in the room.


	13. Friends Against Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Sam go rogue. Natasha confronts Tony about Steve. Clint is recruited for Team Cap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No more buffer chapter for me. This was the last completed chapter I had written before "My Wings, My Gravity" hijacked my life. I'm gonna need to write two-three chapters over the long Easter weekend if I want to make some headway with this, but with the prospect of a sixteen-hour road trip to go to our province where there is erratic-nil internet connectivity, it's not looking so good. BUT that's my problem and not yours, my dear, supportive readers. I'm gonna type using my phone in the car if I have to...
> 
> So more angst and parting of the ways, but at least Tony and Natasha get some ideas as to Steve's impetus, whether Tony does something about it is another matter entirely. More elements taken from the CA:CW teaser and Superbowl featurette, but please keep in mind that the plot of my story is in no way similar to, or trying to pass itself off as, the movie's plot. But I regret nothing *evil laugh*...
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's left Kudos and comments to this as well as to my recently-posted one-shot "My Wings, My Gravity" which is getting even more traction than this WIP. I guess we all have a certain aversion to WIP fics. But here's to hoping that this story will be getting more love once it's complete. (Plus, I have a feeling we're all going to need some sort of pick-me-up after CA:CW comes out and leaves us all for dead).
> 
> Posting this two days in advance because, like I said, I'll be going off to our remote province. So I won't owe you guys anything, I thought I'd post the next installment.
> 
> I can't remember what was on loop on my player while typing this...but I can definitely tell you it's something angsty and heart-rending. Same drill y'all and ENJOY--off we go...  
> ___

Steve went back to pacing for the nth time, walking the length and breadth of the small meeting room that had been turned into a makeshift bedroom for him, supposedly, for the next 48 hours while he was grounded. It was already past 5 in the morning and he hadn’t slept a wink, too pumped up with adrenaline to even stay still for more than a couple of minutes.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Bucky, the announcement of the ratification of The Accords in Nigeria in just a little over 24 hours, HYDRA and their plot to gain possession of the mutagen to make more Enhanced, and Tony…

Tony and the uncharacteristic cold, emptiness and indifference to those brown eyes that Steve used to think were warm, deceptively expressive and sparkling with wit and naughtiness.

The Captain had different variations of apologies, well-rehearsed at the back of his mind, but when he saw Tony in the gray, dust mote-filled light in that maintenance shaft, the apologies all fizzled out in his throat. The hard, emotionless rigidity to Tony’s eyes just rendered Steve instantly mute. What was he expecting, really? That a harried apology that was more than 24 hours late in a dank maintenance shaft was going to cut it?

Steve had been prepared to deal with Tony’s wrath, accusation and guilt-trip at having been abandoned without even a goodbye. But what he had not prepared himself for was the cool detachment and just…wordless acceptance on the part of the genius-billionaire of the present state of things.

Steve’s worry for Bucky, Sam and Scott and shame at having left Tony, high and dry, on the island like the most humongous jerk in the universe overpowered the burning desire to sit Tony down and apologize profusely to him, shake him until a flash of that distinctive Stark attitude appeared in those apathetic eyes. He knew that after the apologies would come the need to explain, and Steve didn’t want that.

True, he had waxed poetic about overcoming all sorts of odds if they worked together, but he didn’t think it was fair to Tony to be dragged into the muck that was Steve’s desire to do right by Bucky because Bucky was Steve’s responsibility, and no one else’s. So he had kept his mouth shut. It was more than enough to carry the guilt of getting Sam and Scott embroiled in the same deep crap, Steve didn’t want Tony in the same predicament.

Steve didn’t regret not telling Tony anything, not involving him in these sordid matters. If he had gotten the genius-billionaire involved, they would have probably been grounded together, kept under the watchful eye of the UN Subcommittee together; Stark Industries would have suffered anew and _for what_? To help the person who had murdered Tony’s parents evade justice to commit another murder, based on a suspicion that was backed by absolutely nil evidence but said assassin’s flimsy say-so, and all the while, going against the governments of the countries they have previously laid waste to, and which Tony has been wanting to make amends for for the longest time…

 _No_ , Steve didn’t regret anything. He did the right thing not getting Tony involved in all this. He wanted Tony as far away from this as possible. Even if it meant being _on-opposing-sides_ type of as-far-away-as-possible.

Maybe in time, Steve could find it in his heart to live with the squeezing of his insides every time he thought about the nothingness in those brown eyes and the betrayal that Steve could imagine the genius-billionaire must feel deep down.

He did try to give Tony some sort of hint or warning, though, that he hoped the brunette would heed somehow. He didn’t want to say anything categorically because he had learned the hard way how there were eyes and ears everywhere, and he didn’t want HYDRA clued in that they knew about their play. But he hoped Tony, with his boundless genius and nosiness, would be curious enough to look into Steve’s cryptic warning about the UN Subcommittee not being what it was supposed to be.

He was about to plop down on the makeshift cot that was provided to him when sirens, not unlike yesterday morning’s, blared all over the building. He didn’t have time to wonder in puzzlement when his door was busted open and Bucky entered still in his tattered red, long-sleeved hoodie. “Let’s go, punk.”

“Buck—what the hell are you doing here?!”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m busting you outta here,” Bucky replied in his gravelly voice, yanking Steve by the lapel of his jacket and dragging him out of the room with his mechanical arm. A gun that was still slightly smoking was clutched in his right.

“Please tell me you only used the gun for a warning shot,” Steve pleaded, keeping pace with Bucky. A shot was fired and would’ve hit Steve in the thigh had Bucky not grabbed a fistful of his clothes and pulled him back as they were rounding a corner.

Bucky responded with a couple of shots of his own that mostly hit their challengers in non-fatal areas. “Not anymore.” They left the comfort of their erstwhile hiding place and ran, ducking every once in a while to evade blind gunfire. “I might have fired at a guy with a metal glove, who looked eerily like Howard, back there.”

Steve, nearly stumbling, stopped and his stomach dropped to his feet in cold fear. Tony… “Did you hit him? Where did you hit him? Where is he? Buck, we have to go back to—“ Steve, in a panic, was already making a 180-degree turn to run back to where Bucky might have incapacitated Tony.

Bucky seized him forcefully by the scruff of his neck and tutted, still raising the gun every so often to fire back a couple of shots. “Relax, _punk_ , I didn’t hit him—well, _I did_ —but not with a gunshot. His glove was bullet-proof or something; I punched him unconscious in the face. He’d be waking up with an impressive shiner, I’ll tell you that.”

There were still fingers of fear that tugged on his heartstrings every once in a while with the thought of Tony lying hurt somewhere while it was raining gunfire. But he tried to contain himself and wordlessly followed Bucky. “We need to get Sam and our gear.”

“Scott’s on it. I just need to get _you_ out, and we’ll meet up with them later.”

“Just so you know, this is not a very good plan.”

“Cat’s out of the bag now. Nothing else matters but stopping HYDRA’s attack on the IFID tomorrow during the announcement ceremony. And we have no chance in the world of stopping it, with you and Sam stuck here,” Bucky answered, pushing Steve’s head down as a volley of shots whizzed by.

They escaped through the sanitation vents in the third floor and through the sewers when an Improvised Explosive Device went off in the main stairwell, blocking pursuers from both the lower and higher floors.

It was already nearing noon when the two super soldiers rendezvoused with Sam. Sam explained that Scott had to leave to see about procuring transportation for them to Nigeria. Bucky, mumbling about going to a weapons stash and arranging another Winter Soldier sighting to give Sam and Steve time to go off-grid, also vanished like smoke shortly. Steve and Sam were left to their own devices, trying to stay as low-key and inconspicuous as possible by hopping from one backstreet café or diner to another.

They didn’t know who they were fooling because Steve knew that the moment he opened his smartphone, Tony could track its signal in less than a minute and it was game over. He had considered ditching the phone, but he couldn’t. It reminded him of better times: with his team—his _friends_ , the Isles of Baime and Tony… Somehow, everything always went back to Tony.

And maybe a certain part of Steve still believed that the smartphone promised him better times yet to come, too.

He only intended to keep the smartphone open for half a minute, every hour, on the hour, as requested by Scott, so they could still have means to get in touch with each other should the need arise, when suddenly, the phone rang shrilly in Steve’s hand.

It was Natasha.

“What are you doing, Steve?” It wasn’t biting, angry or frantic. Just tired. And disappointed.

Eyes and ears everywhere… So Steve considered what to tell Natasha without having to implicate her. Two rogue Avengers were more than enough.

“I know how much Bucky means to you,” Natasha said after a period of silence. “But you have to stay out of this one. Please.” Natasha never begged. Steve only thought she was doing so now because she couldn’t understand their motivation. But this was no longer just about Bucky. This has become so much bigger than Bucky.

“I can’t, Nat. I have to do this. This is no longer just about Bucky. The organization meaning to control us is not all it’s cracked up to be, I know it; I might not have any evidence to support that claim but I also cannot just cower in submission. That’s just not me,” Steve reasoned, looking around the café to see if his conversation has already attracted any unwanted attention.

“So you’re going _rogue_? To prove a point? You’ll only make this worse,” stated Natasha.

“So be it,” replied Steve. He hated doing this to Natasha as much as he hated doing this to Tony. But if the only way to keep them under HYDRA’s radar was to push them away and keep them at arm’s length, then Steve was prepared to go to any lengths to protect them.

“If you stay on this path, Steve, you might not like what’s at the end of it,” Natasha said with foreboding. “When we get the directive to stop you, we will have to.”

“You saying you’ll arrest me?”

“If it comes right down to it.”

“Do what you have to do then. And I’ll do the same.”

“This is what we’re reduced to? I thought we all fight together, and we lose together. Or is all that nothing but glorified lip service?” Natasha queried, trying a different tack. “This can’t be the only means to fight this battle, Steve.”

“Sometimes, cunning just ain’t gonna cut it. We can’t all be like you and Tony,” Steve said, fighting down the lump forming in his throat again with the mere mention of Tony’s name.

“Do you really want to punch your way out of this?”

Steve knew what Nat was trying to do. The call was approaching a minute, just a couple of seconds more and Tony’s satellites would have pinpointed where he and Sam were, down to what refreshments were on their table. He hurriedly clicked the END CALL button on his phone, shut it down and placed it face down on the booth. He couldn’t say he wasn’t shaken by the exchange with Natasha because he was.

_“Do you really want to punch your way out of this?”_

Sam noticed it, too. Taking a calming swig of his iced latte, Sam stated, “we’re really throwing in our lot with Barnes now. No turning back from this…”

“You didn’t have to put yourself in harm’s way, Sam. This wasn’t your fight,” Steve said, dejectedly.

“Like hell, it wasn’t. If I wanted out, I had a chance to walk away 2 days ago; I didn’t. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that crock,” Sam said, pushing his aviator sunglasses higher up his nose bridge. “Besides, if Barnes _is_ correct and the UN is really now infested with HYDRA, then this is my fight just as it’s yours. I guess, all I’m saying is that I just want to make sure we consider all our options. Because these people that shoot at you usually wind up shooting at me, too.”

“What options are there for us, really?” Steve asked with a slight shake of his head. “It’s either we step in line or we stir things up.”

“ _Or_ we call the whole goddamned cavalry and storm the stronghold. Who cares about The Accords at this point? I, sure as hell, don’t. Why can’t you call on the whole Avengers to assemble and get them in on this? Obviously, this would be so much easier if we have Stark’s hacking skills, Wanda’s mind-reading shit or Vision’s access to everything with a digital footprint. We need some serious manpower, Cap. If we want to nail these perps, we need peeps who can get through the cracks to the juicy stuff inside,” Sam proposed.

“No… this internal conflict we have works to our advantage. We can’t let them label the _whole team_ rogue, then who will be out there protecting the people from the real threats apart from spineless cretins just following orders?” Steve reasoned. “The more we dissociate, the more they think they’ve won. They’ve got one side declared rogue, and the other under their thumb… I can work with that,” said Steve, thoughtful.

“But we’re obviously short-handed for what we want to accomplish. We _still_ need evidence to back Bucky’s claim, or any assassination attempt would just cement your friend’s status as Public Enemy Number 1. If we can’t get the team, who else do we have that we can trust?”

“I need a disposable phone or an encrypted line,” answered Steve after a moment’s thought, his blue eyes finally brightening with an idea after a couple of days of misery.

After adding mobile phone theft to their lengthening list of criminal activities, Steve went into the rest room of a nearby mall for a semblance of privacy as his call got patched through to its intended recipient.

“Yel-low…”

“Hey—it’s Steve. How’s the peace and quiet treating you, Barton?”

###

Grimacing, Tony gingerly patted an ice pack against his swollen right eye. He was back at Avengers Tower after the fiasco that was The Winter Soldier breaking into the CIA building and busting Captain America out. Ross, of course, was apoplectic that their perp had escaped their clutches for the _third_ time—and counting—now. There were some injuries, but thankfully, no one died in the struggle.

And Tony had a swollen right eye that stung like a motherfucker as a memento of that morning’s skirmish.

Granted, he could’ve had a more serious injury when Barnes came at his face and shot at him in close range, but he had his prototype gauntlet that stifled the shot. But then the asshole, pulled back that metal arm of his and launched a powerful jab straight at Tony’s face. Which, again, could’ve been so much worse if Tony had not been wearing his custom-made glasses that was made of the same material as his suits. He was fortunate enough to walk away with only a black eye to show for it.

Still hurt like a sonofabitch, though.

All things considered, Tony’s shiner was actually the least of his problems.

With Barnes’ attack to the CIA building to bust the Captain and Falcon out, Thunderbolt Ross finally had an excuse to tag both Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson rogue. The manhunt for The Winter Soldier now included the two Avengers.

When he had come to, Tony tried to reason with Ross to no avail while tamping down his own rage at Steve for casting his lot with his fugitive friend. Yet, when he saw that there was nothing he could do to try to salvage the situation, Tony decided that there was nothing to it but to get some much-needed rest and an ice pack for his eye back in his Tower.

All the ice in the world couldn’t cool his simmering rage at Steve, though. How could Cap do this? This was the question hammering at his already pounding head since he had regained his wits to find that Steve had left the CIA building with Barnes contrary to orders that he was to remain grounded for the next 48 hours. How could Steve do this?! Was it not enough that he had abandoned Tony, now he had also abandoned The Avengers to throw in his lot with his outlaw friend?!

Tony tried to put himself in Steve’s shoes, find the motivation behind his recent decisions, but Tony drew a blank. There must be something Steve wasn’t telling them, something he was trying to keep close to the chest. But Tony was too tired, too weary… too frustrated to read between the lines or decipher _Steve-code_. Everything that had to do with Steve Rogers felt like knives plunging into Tony’s body. Looking at Steve hurt; thinking about Steve hurt. He was so fucking tired; he just wanted to nurse his black eye in a cocoon of blankets in a cupboard or something—shut everything else out.

When the pneumatic doors of the workshop slid open with a hiss to admit a stone-faced Natasha Romanoff, Tony knew he was never going to get that moment’s peace he was craving. Sighing, Tony faced the former assassin-turned-Avenger with annoyance and said, “I don’t remember giving you access to the workshop, Widow. What the _bloody fuck_ are you doing here? This better involve sugar-glazed doughnuts or don’t bother talking to me at all.”

“I asked your AI nicely. The thing with us, girls, is we stick together. Ain’t that right, FRIDAY?” Natasha replied, calling out the last part for FRIDAY’s benefit.

_“Of course, Miss Romanoff.”_

“That does it. I’m re-coding you, FRIDAY… Maybe tomorrow… when I can actually see out of _both_ eyes,” spat Tony, replacing the ice pack to the swollen side of his face.

“You’re just going to sit there, nursing your _black eye_ , while the authorities put out a city-wide manhunt for your friends?” Natasha demanded, taking a stance that unequivocally meant someone was going to get physically mauled in the next ten minutes.

“What do you want me to do?” Tony asked in challenge albeit sullenly. “He’s chosen a side; let him live with it,” he said, noting the bitter taste it left in his mouth.

If Natasha noticed that Tony’s statement focused solely on Steve, she didn’t point it out. Tony hated himself all the more for slip-ups like this, but he also wisely shut his trap—not bothering to amend his statement.

Blessed silence filled the workshop save for the occasional soothing beeps of the multitude of machines, which suited Tony just fine as he immersed himself in one-handed tinkering while his other hand still held the ice pack in place against his face. Occupying his hands with work and his mind with thoughts other than Steve were already beginning to calm his frazzled nerves that, for a while, he had almost forgotten that Natasha was still there.

“Wanda’s gone.” Natasha spoke again, defeat and confusion tainting her voice, as she leaned against a table piled high with engine parts and power tools. “She left the Avengers facility sometime between 2 to 5, early this morning. I’ve been trying to track her remotely, but her power is blocking any efforts on my part. I’m still trying to find out why she left and where she intends to go.”

Silence.

“I talked to Steve over the phone. I wanted to know why he was doing what he was doing. I tried to track his signal, but he got wise. My guess is they’ll probably go to Nigeria and disrupt the announcement ceremony somehow. To what end, I don’t know…”

Silence.

“Tony—“

“— _what_?! Why are you here, Nat? Why are you telling me these things? What do you _want_ from me?!” Tony erupted, slamming the ice pack against the table, angrily. He just wanted some peace and quiet; was it too much to fucking ask?! “I’m not _him_ , alright? If you’re here, thinking I can pick up the slack and fill the void _he_ ’s left behind, you’re wrong. I have no intentions of stepping up to the plate to be a leader—I’m _not_ a leader! The last time I cared enough to do something, _two countries_ got screwed up or have you forgotten?!” Tony laughed without humor. “I’m not even an Avenger anymore—I _quit_ , remember? And I’ve already seconded authority over the Avengers Initiative to the UN Subcommittee, so there’s absolutely… _nothing_ …I can do,” Tony exclaimed, blowing off steam to be replaced by plain and simple defeat.

It felt good to let off some steam, get some of his frustrations out. But it felt awful, too. All he wanted was to sit down with Steve and talk calmly with him like they did on the island so they could effectively put their heads together and get through this together. Wasn’t he the big believer of doing things as a team and all that horseshit? But now, Steve has turned his back on his teammates—his _friends_. To pick Barnes! It baffled and infuriated Tony to no end.

“Are you done?” Natasha asked, looking almost bored, as she inspected her painted nails, unruffled by Tony’s outburst. “Because if you need to let off a bit more steam, go on and have at it.”

Tony snorted. He must have been nuts, momentarily forgetting who it was he was talking to. “I’m _tired_ , Romanoff. I think I might have broken my cheekbone or my eye socket. I am fresh out of fucks to give, so if you’re done here with… _whatever_ the hell it was you went here for, I’d like to be alone now.”

Natasha breathed deeply before walking back to the pneumatic doors. But four steps in, she turned around and reminded the genius-billionaire, “you can do something, Tony. You can _finish_ this.

“Have you never noticed it? That when we respond to potentially-world ending incidents—New York, Sokovia… Steve confronts it head-on, calling out a strategy to try to contain it with the least casualties. _He_ is the starter. But _you_ … it was always you who’d finish it,” Natasha said, boring her shrewd eyes into Tony’s. “That’s what makes The Avengers so effective as a team. Having the two of you as our focal points. Because you and Steve complement each other.

“Now, he’s started something—might not be something you particularly agree with, but hey!—we all screw up, one way or another. It’s just his turn this time. Point is…he started something, and you can finish it, Tony. Steve needs you and your big brain to finish this. Like always,” Natasha urged, playing to Tony’s complex of wanting to be needed.

Because, really, of all things that Tony hated, it was feeling useless that he hated the most. Natasha knew it, too—the crafty wench…

“He said something about the UN Subcommittee not being all it’s cracked up to be—“

“—he told me the same thing,” Tony interrupted, brows furrowing in thought. “He said ‘ _they_ mean to control us but who controls _them_?’”

Tony could almost hear his and Natasha’s brains firing up, analyzing anything and everything that Steve could’ve said to them these past 48 hours. Steve was particularly suspicious of the motives behind the ratification of The Accords and the organization that pushed for it. Steve had never, not once, questioned the spirit of The Accords to them—only the people behind it. This distrust of any sort of control mechanism became the Captain’s default response as a result of Project Insight, which of course led to the discovery that SHIELD had already been infiltrated by HYDRA…

“What if…like SHIELD…the UN Subcommittee has been infiltrated by HYDRA?” Natasha asked, apparently coming to the same conclusion as Tony did.

“It’s not impossible,” Tony agreed, grudgingly.

“Do we have any way of knowing?”

Tony clenched his jaw. His brain was already mapping out what they needed to do, where they needed to go, what they ought to find that would have rendered a normal person nauseated and dizzy. In between these analytical flashes, though, one image kept cropping up: the wistful smile on Steve’s face that was bathed in moonlight, in the weeping willow cove.

In the future, if he ever studied and deconstructed this moment, he would say that _this_ was Tony Stark in his most masochistic.

“Get me Vision.”

###

Convincing Clint Barton aka Hawkeye had not been easy, especially with his general distrust of Bucky after hearing all the stories from Natasha, Maria Hill and even Sam who had all been privy, one way or another, to The Winter Soldier’s handiwork. It didn’t make Steve’s job any easier when they didn’t have anything to corroborate their accusation against the UN Subcommittee and its supposed ties with HYDRA.

Funny enough, what began to sway Clint was the fact of The Winter Soldier’s vague recollection of HYDRA’s general plan seen through the curtains of inhumane brainwashing. If there was anyone more sympathetic to the plight of people brainwashed to commit horrors against their will than Clint, Steve had not met them yet. To this day, Clint still had not completely forgiven himself for the atrocities he had been forced to do while under Loki’s influence.

It was that and the possible use of his family as leverage to control him, similar to Scott’s impetus, that got Clint fully on board with the plan: acquire the mutagen sample themselves and dispatch Zemo and his henchmen, launching a mock-attack on the IFID.

They decided to have a bit of a layover at Scott’s friend’s cabin again, ironing out the details, until they had to leave for Nigeria in a few hours. Steve was outside, relishing a rare moment of peace—the calm before the storm, in a manner of speaking, and looking up at the evening skies dotted with a sprinkling of stars in various degrees of luminescence. And without consciously meaning to, his mind wandered to thoughts of Tony.

He hated it—how his mind was almost always filled with thoughts of Tony. And at the forefront were those warm brown eyes, that smiling mouth, the long tapering fingers. And the way Tony made him feel—well… feel. Just _feel_.

But thoughts of Tony almost always came with stifling remorse, too. Painful lumps in Steve’s throat, hollowness in the vicinity of his diaphragm, prickling behind his eyes. For the nth time, he wavered in his resolve to keep the other man out of this mess. He itched to tell Tony everything, if only to wipe the dispassion to those brown eyes that Steve knew he was responsible for.

He swore to himself, right then and there, that he was going to apologize to Tony the next time they met; he owed it to the brunette, after all—to apologize for every hurtful thing Steve said and didn’t say, everything he did and didn’t do that led them here. He only hoped that, by then, it wasn’t already too late.

“Deep thoughts?” Clint suddenly piped up from the direction of the cabin, behind him. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“It’s alright. I’m just… anxious for tomorrow, I guess,” Steve answered, making room on the felled tree trunk that he was sitting on.

“We all are. And I think we have a right to be,” said Clint. “We’re facing the prospect of having to fight against our friends.”

“I hope you know how sorry I am for dragging you into this mess, Clint. You got out for a good reason. It’s just… outside of the team, there’s hardly anyone I trust,” apologized Steve, leaning forward and placing his forearms on his thighs.

“This is as good a reason as any to jump back in,” assured the archer. “Your heart is in the right place, Steve. In time, they will understand that.”

“But at what cost?”

Clint didn’t have any response to that other than a deep sigh. He was probably thinking of steering the conversation to less somber topics, but before he could do so, Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch landed in front of them in feathery streaks of her characteristic red energy that would have startled them were they not bad-ass superheroes.

“Barton,” Wanda said by way of acknowledgment. “Captain.”

“Wanda! What are you doing here?” Steve asked, momentarily panicked that their hideout had been discovered by the authorities.

“I’ve come to join your cause and stop HYDRA,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, like there was no further explanation needed.

“OK. Cool,” Clint answered after a moment’s hesitation. Steve, in spite of himself, smiled.


	14. "So Was I."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A heartrending encounter. A realization. The words that reduced an entire fandom to a blubbering mess. Yes... those words...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's left comments and Kudos. Please keep an eye out for issues and don't hesitate to let me know about them, a'ight?
> 
> Wrote this during my vacay (one of the best vacay, but then every vacation spent with my family always is) and it was a hard one to write. Like pulling a mushroom through the eye of a needle.
> 
> With "Just a Fool" by Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton as my accompaniment.  
> ___

The day dawned sunny and humid in Lagos, Nigeria and Tony inwardly berated himself for his sartorial choices as he stewed in his three-piece Armani suit in the sweltering 10 a.m. sun in the middle of the courtyard of the most popular hotel in the heart of the city where they decided to hold the official press conference and media reception regarding the ratification of The Accords.

The member-states of the UN Subcommittee had made it out to be an event with major fanfare, and Tony couldn’t even understand what all the media hullabaloo was for. There were dignitaries in attendance and absent dignitaries were well represented; there were media people on their respective platforms, as well as prominent citizens from Nigeria, neighboring African and European countries, and elite police forces, private militia and suspected Enhanced individuals in the crowd.

Tony was there, not as an Avenger but as the influential businessman whose tech conglomerate had The Avengers under its mantle. Incidentally, Ross and the ever-elusive EU representative, Helmut Zemo, also wanted to have the authority over The Avengers officially turned over to the UN Subcommittee on the occasion of the announcement of The Accords’ ratification. Tony merely smiled and decided to indulge them.

How could he not when, after another sleepless night of trawling through publicly-available and even classified information with the help of Vision, they failed to find anything that would corroborate the Captain’s suspicions relayed to them through cryptic remarks that the UN Subcommittee might have been infiltrated by HYDRA? No evidence meant unfounded accusations so Tony’s hands were tied—to Natasha’s immense displeasure: the announcement was going to have to proceed as planned and so would the secondment of the Avengers Initiative.

He was on one of the seats of honor, beside T’Challa, practically perfecting the science of sleeping through hooded eyes behind dark aviator sunglasses, when an explosion rocked the plaza from somewhere that was too close for any of them to discount as mere trifle. Tony, suddenly awake, was out of his seat and running towards the nearest open space to remotely summon his suit before any of the dignitaries even knew what was happening.

“Stark! What are you doing?!” Ross angrily screamed at him through the commotion as dignitaries were roused from their seats and ushered to safety. Gunfire broke out nearby, drowning out the cries of the panicking event attendees.

“Right, right—I almost forgot; we need _permission_ before we can respond,” Tony said, rolling his eyes and calmly orchestrating his limbs to receive each component of his suit as they flew towards him. “So what’s it gonna be, Ross? Do we sit this one out or do we save all your asses? I can wait for an inquiry…or a—a vote, maybe? If that’s what you want…” He didn’t want to be sarcastic; he was supposed to be supportive of this bureaucratic decision after all. But he couldn’t help himself.

“Consider yourself summoned, Mr. Stark. Have your team deal with this,” Zemo piped up from a crouching position nearby. His eyes were unusually cold and calculating, contrary to his body language that was supposed to convey panic or alarm.

“Avengers Assemble,” Tony simply said through their comm channel. He had always wanted to say that catchphrase, himself. And he should be gloating that he got to say it this time as the stand-in leader for the remaining Avengers, but he couldn’t. There was something oddly nostalgic about hearing it—like it sounded _wrong_ somehow, coming from someone _other than_ Steve. It was rather painful. Like a relentless reminder of what they were missing. Suffice it to say that Tony didn’t take any kind of pleasure at all from having to say something that he thought Steve, and only Steve, had a right and the authority to say.

“I’d like to help out, if I may?”

Tony, now clad in his armor, spun to look at Black Panther, dressed for battle and raring to go—vibranium talons and all. “All paws on deck then,” Tony replied as cheekily as he could since T’Challa could no longer see him behind the glowing eyes of his Iron Man faceplate.

“Hurry along, Stark! We need more things that go boom; we’re getting mauled out here,” Natasha interjected on comms.

“I just called for an assembly and _already_ you’re getting mauled? Do we know who we’re up against? Do we know what they’re after? _What_ do we _know_?!”

It was sheer pandemonium when Iron Man and Black Panther set foot on the field of battle. It was evidently unclear who was attacking or defending whom. Everyone was either in black unmarked combat gear or their friends. There were super soldiers launching themselves at people atop trucks, sending them sailing through the air; there were flying people in streaks of red, wide metal wings, gold capes or repulsors; there were ninja-assassins in the fray shooting with guns or arrows; there were also men just seemingly keeling over out of their own accord with no clear opponent in sight; there were indiscriminate shooting, flying debris, citizens caught in the crossfire and scrambling for cover, careering armored jeeps and motorcycles, and exploding RPGs.

“Hate them RPGs,” Rhodey’s dismayed voice crackled loud and clear through the comms despite bursts of gunfire.

Tony, launching himself to the skies, targeted four, five, six armored jeeps with RPGs mounted on the roof, two choppers and one RPG hurling from a third floor balcony of a nearby building and took them all out at once using his armor arsenal. “Anything for you, sugar bear.”

“Show-off! I got Barnes storming the hotel through the rear. He’ll be after Zemo.”

“Hostiles pouring in the square.”

“Cap just busted through the IFID building’s third floor window.”

“Viz, you get the civilians; Panther, you’re on Zemo. Leave Cap to me,” Tony barked, abruptly changing direction in mid-air, hurtling straight for the ground before pulling up and busting through a fourth floor balcony access.

“To your left, Widow.”

“Building on three o’clock is getting heavy gunfire—“

“Who the bloody fuck are these people?!”

“Zemo’s not in the hotel, Stark—“

“Well—where the hell is he?”

“I can remotely access the hotel cameras as well as satellite imaging to locate Baron Zemo. Perhaps His Highness and I might switch duties?”

“Right, right—Viz you’re on Zemo; find that asshole. Panther, you’re on civilian duty—“

“—somebody take out Falcon; he’s been scouting the roof of the IFID for a way in—“

“On it! What do you guys think is in the IFID? I got some black-clad bogeys wanting an in, too.”

“FRIDAY, get me a list of everything on the IFID inventory—diseases, viruses, bacteria, vaccines, antigens, mutagens… biological samples that can be weaponized. If they got the zombie apocalypse pathogen or Saddam Hussein’s clone cooking in there—I wanna know about it!”

_“Searching and downloading, Sir.”_

“Do you think _they’re_ working alongside the bogeys?”

“I don’t know. I wanna ask, but they’re still shooting at _me_ —Goddammit it, Barton! If I find one of his arrows up my ass, I don’t care if he’s your friend, Nat—I’m taking the motherfucker down—“

“Less chatter, more action.”

“FRIDAY, show me _something_!”

Tony was pissed. He had never liked to be out of the loop for anything. And Cap and his people’s unusual interest in the IFID was making Tony’s lip curl in frustration. So much so that he took it out on the poor schmucks standing in his way by blasting them with electric pellets that would feel similar to being electrocuted before getting kicked in the gut by a wild colt.

_“The IFID has 142 viruses, 39 bacterial cultures, 118 vaccines, 5 antigens and 2 mutagens. The list is on your HUD. A more aggressive strand of the bubonic plague, MERS-COV, AH1N1, SARS, Ebola, Falciparum malaria, MEV-1, ZB-TAI are the more notable of the virus/diseases they have on cold storage. They also have a recently-recorded sample turnover from SHIELD—the ENH12VX mutagen—the details of which have not yet been logged in their database. Performing a search of the mutagen in the dumped SHIELD files… No files found. Performing a search on the files acquired and saved from the HYDRA raids… ENH12VX mutagen was developed by harnessing the power of Loki’s scepter through the efforts of a team headed by Dr. List upon the commission of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker—“_

“They’re after it,” Tony concluded, not letting FRIDAY finish her report.

“ _Who_ ’s after it?! I still got bogeys pouring in the square and giving that IFID building the stink-eye, Tones!”

“ _All_ of them!” Tony yelled through the comms. “Change of plans, guys. Keeping them out of the IFID is the endgame! Panther and Rhodey, you’re on civilian protection and keeping all hostiles in the perimeter. No one gets in the IFID— _No one_. Widow, try to locate Zemo with your ninja shit. But he’s not the priority, the other dignitaries and the civilians are. Vision—on me. I need you to access the IFID security and pinpoint the location of the mutagen and any hostiles able to slip through. Once you do, let me know and we take ‘em out. No one gets to the goods but me. We cool?” Tony fired several repulsors blasts in quick succession at stray hostiles inside the building.

There was chatter of acknowledgment from the rest of Tony’s team in the comm channel as the new strategy was mapped out.

It was a bit clearer now what the rogue Avengers might be after. Who they were protecting it from was still shady for Tony—like there were still some variables missing that was keeping the genius-billionaire from solving the equation.

“Iron Man, the Captain is on the ground floor where the cryo unit and incubation chamber are located. According to the IFID inventory, this is the most likely location of the mutagen sample,” Vision reported through the comms. “En route, but I’ve engaged a group of seven hostiles about twenty-five meters from the Captain’s location.”

Tony had FRIDAY pour more power into the thrusters and slammed into an unknowing group of black-clad men, knocking them over like bowling pins. Hovering by the elevator doors, he pried it open and dived into the elevator shaft to the ground floor. “No worries, Viz. I’ve got it all under control.”

The ingress to the cryo unit and incubation chamber was already privy to Cap’s vibranium shield by the time that Tony got there. There was broken glass everywhere, but the more dangerous substances were blessedly unharmed in their vacuum canisters in the circular cryostasis unit in the middle of the darkened room where the Captain was already circling, trying to find the safety hatch to open the thing.

“You don’t want to do that, Cap; trust me,” Tony warned, raising his gauntlets at Steve in preparation to blast him if necessary.

“Oh but I do. The UN Subcommittee is not getting their hands on the mutagen.”

“Step away from the unit, Steve. Don’t do it,” threatened Tony, stepping closer to the other man and targeting body parts, the injuries to which would cause the least amount of discomfort. Why would the UN Subcommittee want this mutagen? Were the black-clad men commissioned by the UN Subcommittee to filch the mutagen for them?

Steve pulled his shield arm back for a powerful blow that would no doubt destroy the cryo unit. What Steve couldn’t possibly understand was that the mutagen was the _least_ of their concerns—if the cryo unit was destroyed, all the infectious samples would be unleashed, and Nigeria would be the ground zero for an unintentional deployment of bio-chemical warfare brought about by Captain America.

Not. Good.

Tony repulsored Steve using maximum power, sending the latter flying and landing on his ass. “I’m not gonna say it again, Cap,” growled Tony, retracting the suit’s helmet to give Steve the stink-eye for maximum effect.

But before Tony could guard against it, Steve gave the shield a mighty throw and the metal impacted against Iron Man’s chest, burrowing itself between the shoulder and chest plate of the armor, compromising its integrity. Tony fired up his repulsors to get back on his feet quickly, shocked that Steve would actually harm the armor and him. With furrowed brows, disbelief and pain that he knew were shining out of his eyes, Tony yanked the shield off of him, threw it to the wall and dealt a forceful backhand against Steve, hitting the latter in the jaw and sending him flying for a second time.

A jaw-shaking punch rocked Tony from behind shortly after that. Barnes had surreptitiously snuck back into the IFID to join the two-way tussle. Tony’s helmet unfurled from his back quickly as he did his best to parry the blows dealt by Barnes in quick succession. From out of the corner of his eye, he could see Steve getting back up on his feet with a tentative hand on his tender jaw. Tony had absolutely no intention to engage in a three-way fight with two super soldiers and be the punching bag-underdog. But he couldn’t very well leave the two here to destroy the cryo unit.

“Vision, get ready to put this room in lockdown. You are to guard it at all costs after I fly outta here,” Tony instructed over the comms without waiting for acknowledgment, and firing up his repulsors, body slammed against Barnes, seized the just-getting-up Steve by the torso, sans the shield, and flew out the emergency access panel. He figured that Barnes’ first priority would be to run to Steve’s aid, bearing the shield, instead of disposing of the mutagen, which Vision can then protect by putting the containment chambers in lock down.

People who care could be so predictable sometimes.

Tony flew towards the roof of the IFID building, carrying an actively squirming Steve in his arms. The brunette didn’t want to think about the last time they ‘flew’ together. Oh how times have changed so drastically for the two of them!

Feeling hateful and angry all of a sudden, Tony projectile-threw Steve at an angle and the blue-clad super soldier crashed into, tucked and rolled into a hangar-type space with a circular vent on the steel-trussed roof and the far-off view of bald mountains and deserts in the distance.

“Do you really want a war, Rogers? Because if you want war, I’ll give you war,” said Tony through gritted teeth, clenching his gauntleted hands into fists.

“I have to do this, Tony; you don’t understand—“

“—then _make_ me understand! Is this—whatever this is—worth fighting with your teammates, _your friends_ , keeping them in the dark?!” Raising his gauntlets again, Tony prepped to blast the Captain just enough to momentarily incapacitate but not to do any lasting damage. He didn’t know why he was still being considerate, holding back on his attacks against Steve, when the latter clearly had no such similar reservations. But before he could fire, the vibranium shield slammed against his shoulder blade, knocking him sideways.

Barnes was fucking fast. He must have really hustled to come to Steve’s aid, thinking that Iron Man really meant to harm his friend.

The shield was easily recovered by Barnes, on the run, from where it had fallen. And he smashed it against Iron Man’s torso with such ferocity that it sent Tony skidding a few paces back. He raised a gauntlet as he was getting back on his feet and blasted Barnes in the shoulder, but not before the shield was hurled back to hands of Captain America, who knocked the metal disk against the side of the armor to keep Tony from getting any more momentum on his other repulsor.

So it was going to be a two-against-one fight. Then Tony narrowed his eyes behind the HUD and hissed. He could take them on. He told himself not to hold back anymore, but a part of him couldn’t do it.

Even before he had discovered a certain affection and attraction for Steve, there had already been comradeship and respect. Immense and undeniable respect, that even if they had not always seen eye to eye, Tony had always tried to hold back on his scathing words and physical attacks against the Captain. With the exception of the vitriol during their first meeting, Tony had always tried to avoid hurtful confrontations with any of his teammates and Steve, most especially.

He was in a jam now, because he wanted to hold back if only to retain the last morsels of respect and affection he has for the Captain. But judging by the ferocity of the one-two combination of attacks, coming from both sides, unrelenting and unapologetic, the two super soldiers didn’t share the same sentiment. Tony’s reverence for the vibranium shield that the two were passing back and forth in a furious relay was definitely dwindling by the second.

The chatter on comms faded to mere background noise in the genius-billionaire’s HUD as his concentration was hijacked by the ensuing three-way fracas. His heart was not in it, though, if his half-hearted assaults were any indication. He did connect on some of them—hitting Barnes in the clavicle and socking Steve in the jaw twice.

Tony was in some sort of haze. Like every blow dealt to Steve by his own hand was hurting him, too. Why were they reduced to this? What had happened to them? Tony only woke up to full attention when Barnes, with his mechanical hand, seized the arc reactor casing and made to pull with malice and viciousness.

“No Bucky!” Steve hollered, panic lacing his voice.

But anger had completely overtaken Tony, still reeling from the throbbing pain of his black-eye. Enough was enough. He was putting an end to this. Now. Pulling his arms back and engaging the gauntlet thrusters for more impact, Tony walloped Barnes in the chest, sending the fugitive careering through the breadth of the rooftop hangar and falling like a rag doll, unconscious.

That momentary distraction was enough for Tony to charge the chest piece and blast Cap on the abdomen with the force of a sledgehammer before the latter could defend himself with the shield, knocking the blue-clad Avenger down and sending him face down on the concrete.

Tony had never knocked Steve down on the rare times they sparred in the past. The Armored Avenger should count this as a win, but funny enough, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to.

“Stay down,” advised Tony in his most intimidating Iron Man voice. But Steve slowly got back to his feet, glancing at Barnes’ prostrate figure with worry and resignation in the once-familiar blue eyes. With a scoff and a shake of his head, Tony chortled humorlessly, “why are you doing this, Cap? What are you waging a war against us for?”

Steve spat blood and raised his arms defensively, apology clearly writ in his blue orbs—apology that was days too late for something Tony still couldn’t quite grasp. “I’m sorry, Tony. You know I wouldn't do this if I had any other choice. But he's my friend,” said Steve, glancing Barnes’ way again.

And it both hurt and angered Tony. Steve was risking so much, divesting himself of friends and principles he once stood by and for. And for what? Another Steve fleetingly crossed Tony’s mind. The Steve who had laughed at his jokes on the island, who had looked at him with admiration and trust, who had kissed him with such passion and promise for a new frontier in their relationship—one they would never have, one that would have never worked, because they were too contradictory. Tony was almost sorry, himself.

Sorry that Steve would never fight for him the way he was now fighting for Barnes.

Hoping that his reply wouldn’t clue Steve in on how his heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces within his surgically reconstructed chest cavity, Tony said evenly:

“So was I.”

An explosion violently rocked the rooftop hangar that sent Steve falling over the edge and Tony plummeting into a cavity that had opened up beneath his feet.

###

_“So was I.”_

_“So was I.”_

_“So was I.”_

Steve thankfully accepted the cold pack handed out by Clint, and with a grimace and a slight hiss, patted it gingerly against his chin and jaw. He wanted to curl up in a fort of pillows, pass out and not wake up for a week; he was so exhausted, physically and emotionally drained that he just wanted to cut himself some slack. But he knew that they couldn’t afford it. They didn’t exactly succeed in any of the endeavors they had set out to do. Not that any of those mission parameters were easy to accomplish to begin with, but Steve had hoped that they could’ve at least destroyed the mutagen kept in the IFID. But even that was not to be.

There really was something inherently difficult about having to face off against people who were once your family, people you had shared meals with, laughed and joked with.

Kissed and cuddled with.

Steve could say that, by far, the hardest thing he’d had to deal with in their most recent tussle was to face Tony and feel the disbelief, sad regret and accusation in those three monosyllabic words.

_“So was I.”_

There was no erasing it—the painful wrench in his middle, like being gutted—every time he relived Tony’s last words to him since they had arrived in Clint’s safe house from Nigeria almost two hours ago. Iron Man had given as good as he got, but none of the physical wounds could compare to the absolute ache brought about by those three words and everything else that remained unspoken between them.

Steve should’ve just said something. Voiced his accusations, warned Tony of the venomous snake coiled and waiting to strike in their midst. So what if they didn’t have a single shred of evidence? So what if Bucky was the one who had killed Tony’s parents? So what if it was tantamount to treason and global terrorism?

He would’ve done anything—said anything—if only to have Tony _not_ say those three words.

Too late.

This was all his fault. He was the one who had spouted the ‘we’ll fight together, and we’ll lose together’ drivel and yet he was the one who had turned his back on his team and gone rogue. But he couldn’t stomach what The Accords was asking from him nor could he ask his team to become fugitives like him. Oh it was all such a mess!

And now Tony thought they were in some sort of war of ideals or something. When all the while Steve couldn’t stop thinking of staring into those big brown eyes and seeing a moonlit cove.

Turning his head this way and that to inspect the rest of the Avengers rogue faction as he had begun to refer to them in his mind, Steve saw some of them sporting minor injuries, looking all shaken and dejected, not because they have failed in their mission but because it was a difficult one—their most difficult one yet: having to face their friends and go head-to-head with them.

Steve knew that Sam liked doing flight sims and sparring with Jim. The former has such respect for the latter considering their similar armed forces background. It must have been tough for Sam to have to face Jim out there.

The Captain also knew that Wanda had developed a certain attachment to Vision. So any encounters between those two in Nigeria must have been fraught with distress and pain as well.

He didn’t even want to go into the fact that Clint had had to face off with Natasha with whom he had been friends for the longest time that even his _children_ treated Nat like an aunt.

And of course, there was _Tony_. Their history might not have been as long as Clint and Nat’s or as interesting as Vision and Wanda’s or as similar as Sam and Jim’s but it had been meaningful.

It wasn’t that Steve regretted siding with Bucky on this one. Bucky was Steve’s oldest and best friend after all, but he wished he didn’t have to at the expense of his relationship with Tony. As if there even was one—a relationship? Any possibility of _anything_ with Tony was now consigned to wishful thinking. Any excitement he had been entertaining merely three days ago about taking his relationship with Tony to the next level all but fizzled out because Tony was never going to forgive him. There was no taking back any of this—not the abandonment, not the going rogue, not this recent tussle. He didn’t know why but he wanted to sob in disappointment.

Disappointed with himself and with their crappy fate in general, Steve stood up with a huff, taking his cold compress and his disappointment outside the safe house where the rest of the team wouldn’t be able to see him silently beat himself up.

It was another nice evening.  Funny that just last night he was looking at the same stars and the same sky in New Hampshire, but tonight he and the rest of the team were actually in the outskirts of London, England, laying low to lick their wounds and regroup for possibly another crack at the UN Subcommittee and HYDRA. They didn’t know yet how they were to accomplish that, but Steve was hoping for some kind of break from Clint’s contacts within the intelligence circle.

The moon looked different from the one that they had basked under during his birthday. It was probably for the best that it did, otherwise, it would’ve angered Steve more that the moon dared to stay unchanged while he and Tony had transformed so drastically that they’d never be the same again. That night was nothing but a faraway dream now, and the back of Steve’s eyes stung, hot and aching.

He tentatively poked a hand into the secret compartment of his Captain America uniform’s right boot and fished his smartphone out. He knew that there was no use trying to dredge up happy times spent with Tony and torturing himself, but he couldn’t help it. This was the only way he could feel close to Tony again, recollect moments when he had been truly happy and carefree, and conjure some kind of small kindling of hope that this—this misunderstanding, this war, too shall pass.

He navigated the smartphone to his stored videos and replayed the one of Tony playing the piano during the charity auction dinner. And with a tight bite on his lower lip to tamp down on his emotions threatening to overflow unchecked, Steve watched Tony and the latter’s talented fingers dancing over the ebony and ivory, his serene face as the music flowed from those fingers, his shining brown eyes, his profile, the slight furrow between his brows as the music came to a crescendo, his rare smile as the melody came to a close and the crowd erupted in awed and admiring applause.

And Steve, putting a palm over his mouth, wanted to cry. Tony was so beautiful, so talented, so witty, so amazing, so thoughtful and kind; and Steve was such a class-A asshole. Now, things were so convoluted, he didn’t know if things could ever be same way again or if they could even right their mistakes.

Steve was so engrossed watching the 3-minute video that he replayed it five times more, feeling increasingly frustrated with every viewing and yet even more spiritually attached to Tony that he couldn’t refrain from watching.

“Hello Captain,” Wanda greeted, intruding into Steve’s thoughts with a sheepish grin on her young and unconventionally beautiful face. “May I join you?”

Steve gestured for her to do so with a tight-lipped smile, scrambled to stop the video and return the gadget to his boot’s secret pocket.

After a period of terse silence spent craning their necks to appreciate the interesting heavens, Wanda, steeling herself, observed, “you seem disturbed about something, Captain.”

“I can only surmise how hard this day must have been for you—for all of us, really.”

“It was difficult, but we had a job to do and our personal feelings should not affect that,” Wanda reassured, but there was sadness in her voice and eyes. “This is about Stark. You are disturbed about Stark,” Wanda fearlessly observed, and Steve gave a start at the accuracy of the remark.

Recovering his composure, Steve slumped in dejection again. “You can say that. I don’t want to be on opposing sides with Tony—with any of them—but Bucky needs someone to believe in him and HYDRA needs to be exposed or the Avengers will be nothing but unknowing HYDRA pawns. None of us want that.”

“I am first and foremost against that, too, Captain. After having been used and manipulated by HYDRA through Strucker, I want to be part of none of it. I am still not the biggest fan of Tony Stark, but I have come to know that there are bigger evils in this world than what we’ve seen as children. Some of them have a different face, too—they will appear to want to help you but they only just want to help themselves at your expense,” said Wanda, hugging her arms close to her chest.

“That is the reason I left the base to seek you out. I am the only living Enhanced they were able to successfully create. They will want to get hold of me to study me and possibly recreate their success with the mutagen. I refuse to be manipulated again; I’d rather be declared rogue and be on the run than make it easy for these people to get what they want,” she continued with a tone of contempt. “I also know about Barnes and about the brainwashing that they did to him, and I figured you would need my help—my abilities—to deal with that.”

Steve hummed, thankful for Wanda’s insight and her willingness to help him and Bucky. Silence enveloped the two, after that. Wanda returned to studying the skies while Steve unconsciously patted the secret pouch in his boot again with a restrained sigh.

“You love him, don’t you?” Wanda asked, breaking the comfortable silence after a while.

Steve just thought she was referring to Bucky and answered, “I love Bucky like a brother. He’s family.”

“I was talking about _Stark_ ,” Wanda clarified, still serene and unruffled. Unlike Steve, who gave quite a perceptible start and looked at Wanda like she had grown horns. “I’ve been given both a terrible and amazing gift, Captain. Sometimes, I see things that haven’t happened yet or know something about someone that they might not even consciously realize about themselves yet. You haven’t consciously come to terms with it yet, but you do. You have fallen in love with him.”

Instead of basking in that knowledge and feeling excited about the prospect of love and Tony, Steve felt like growling in anger and frustration. Or sobbing. His eyes started to sting a bit again. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, resignedly. “We have done and said things that may be beyond forgiveness.”

“Nothing is beyond redemption, especially when there is love,” Wanda replied, sagely. “Have faith, Captain. Have faith in the one you love. I have a feeling that everything will be all right in the end.”

Steve breathed a deep sigh, feeling both cold with longing and warm with unexpected hope. If he felt this strongly for Tony, thinking about him all the damn time, regretting this misunderstanding between them, and feeling such pain because of everything they said and didn’t say and everything they did and didn’t do, then Steve must be.

Steve Rogers was in love with Tony Stark.

_“So was I.”_

It hit him like a repulsor blast to the face that tears actually pooled in his eyes.

He was in love with Tony…

This was so not the way he had imagined finding out he was in love with someone. Had he not waited seventy-five long years for this? He had imagined the feeling of lightness but fullness. Not self-hate, regret and wanting to curl his body into a ball and scream inside.

_He was in love with Tony!_

But despite that, Steve had still hurt him. Steve had abandoned and sacrificed the one he was in love with for his treasured and most missed best friend. He didn’t know if he could ever be forgiven for that. If he could even forgive _himself_ for that.

Closing his eyes to offer a silent prayer to the heavens, Steve murmured more to himself than to Wanda. “I hope so… God, I hope so.”


	15. Turncoat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha switches sides. Is it a betrayal to Tony or something else?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the one day-delay. We were so hungover yesterday, but despite that, my cousins and I still went on two solve-clues-to-get-out-of-a-room puzzles that were frustratingly fun! Anyway, hope you aren't too pissed about this delay.
> 
> Thanks to those who've left Kudos and comments on this story; I appreciate it. With hope, I can round out the story before CA:CW opens here in my country on April 27th. I have three chappies left to write and post...
> 
> Let me know of any issues and typos, please so they can be rectified.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> ___

Tony belched loudly and grimaced, tasting the vile trace of undiluted scotch in his breath. It wasn’t vile enough to make him stop guzzling the stuff down like a fish in water, though. He brought the mouth of the nearly spent bottle of scotch to his lips and gulped, spilling some on the corners of his mouth, which he remedied by wiping the back of his hand carelessly against his face.

The genius-billionaire hadn’t even bothered to put on decent clothes since arriving in the hotel room and stripping off the three-piece suit that had served as his under armor apparel during the attack in Lagos, preferring to dress in the hotel-provided bathrobe. His injuries, though very minor, surprisingly left him bone-tired and lethargic. Leaning his head back against the immaculate wall of his ritzy London hotel room and fighting the reflex to dry heave, he splayed his legs carelessly on the carpeted floor and put the bottle of scotch beside him in the jerky movements of the very drunk, unmindful that the bottle had tipped over to lie on its side and scotch was trickling from the rim, creating a wet patch on the deep red wall-to-wall carpet.

It was a marvel how he was able to hold himself together long enough to help in the aftermath of the scuffle in Nigeria during the announcement of the ratification of The Accords. He’d even had his team gathered for an unofficial debrief and report to Ross and the rest of the UN Subcommittee sans Zemo who had mysteriously vanished in the middle of the fray only to re-appear just as the matter of the targeting of the IFID came up.

Tony had flippantly disclosed to the UN Subcommittee that it was the SHIELD-surrendered mutagen that the rogue Avengers were definitely after based on Captain Rogers’ own admission during an encounter. Tony could tell that Natasha obviously disapproved of the disclosure, fully convinced that the rogue Avengers were only after the mutagen sample to protect it from someone else—someone infinitely more dangerous, should they come into the mutagen’s possession. But as it was Tony who was leading the pack, Natasha had kept to the program with her jaw clenched in silent displeasure.

The IFID management had decided to divest itself of the mutagen in favor of the UN Subcommittee and Tony had made an offhand proposal to help in the mutagen’s transportation to the United States and its safekeeping. The UN Subcommittee had been split on the decision to let Tony have intermediate possession of the mutagen; Zemo and Ross had been against it, and the billionaire had known better than to push.

But the truth of the matter was Tony wanted that mutagen so badly because he was dead certain that Steve would try to get to it again. And if their erstwhile teammates would, then so would the unknown forces keeping to the shadows of this conflict. Tony trusted Ross and Zemo about as far as he could throw them without the aid of the armor that while he didn’t have evidence as yet against either of them and their possible connection to HYDRA, Tony knew that the only way to lure the sharks was to leave a trail of blood; for that, he needed the mutagen.

T’Challa, as a member of the UN Subcommittee himself, had supported Tony on his proposal. And that had done the trick to convince the majority to entrust the mutagen to The Avengers and Tony Stark, and Tony had counted that as a win, possibly exactly what they needed to turn things around and begin to end the current conflict.

He had busied himself, making all the arrangements on the flight from Nigeria to London where a Stark Industries-chartered plane guarded by The Avengers and Black Panther would be taking the mutagen from Heathrow airport to JFK in the US.

He had kept himself engaged, conferring with the rest of his team about their strategy and discussing with them privately, if necessary. Tony had taken the longest time, conversing with Vision because the genius-billionaire felt like he needed one more trump card on top of the mutagen’s come-hither call. And he’d just had an epiphany as to exactly how and where to get it.

It was good to have his attention occupied. He was able to push the thought of Steve and their last encounter at the very back of his mind for a couple more hours, at least. But of course, things took a downward spiral pretty quickly as soon as he found himself alone with a fully-stocked minibar and nothing else to keep his mind and hands busy.

Tony was _pissed_ , in more ways than one. It was funny that not even a week ago, he was drowning himself in alcohol because Pepper had officially ended their relationship. And now, he was getting hammered again to try to forget the gnawing pain in the vicinity of where his arc reactor used to be. Because of Steve fucking Rogers.

Fuck him. Actually, no. That was wrong. Steve couldn’t be blamed for how Tony felt right now. This was on Tony—solely and completely. He had let his guard down and Steve vaulted over his lowered walls like a cat burglar in the dead of night and left his life just as quickly and stealthily. Tony had fucking let him do that! Where was his self-respect? Was he a masochist that one failed relationship that left him shattered and disillusioned was just not enough that he had to go jump headfirst into another—well, he couldn’t exactly call it a _relationship_ , when there was barely anything between them, could he?—whatever the fuck it was he had with Steve, one-night stand, in-the-heat-of-the-moment one-off, casual sex-tryst. Whatever. The Fuck. It was.

He was probably the only one feeling this kind of pain, too. All because Tony was stupid enough to _hope_ that he could matter to Steve as Steve had started to matter to him. But the moment that Barnes blipped on the radar, Steve abandoned Tony with no explanations, no apologies, no looking back. Tony could’ve flipped his shit, too; he could’ve raised hell. Tony Stark had never been above vindictive revenge after all. But he just got tired of it all. Tony guessed that some people, like Barnes, were just incredibly fortunate to mean the world to someone else, and there were people like Tony, who were just a dime a dozen, expendable, inconsequential… He was fucking _Tony Stark_ with a net worth of _billions_ , but to Captain America, he just wasn’t worth it.

_“I’m sorry, Tony. You know I wouldn't do this if I had any other choice. But he's my friend.”_

He and Steve had been friends once upon a time, too; maybe they could’ve even been more. Steve had got his back—on the battlefield in the face of foes and on the island if only against a nut like Heather Devigne but Tony should have known that it was not to last because it was too good to be true. Fate wasn’t on their side; or at least, fate wasn’t on _Tony’s_ side. So the best that could be done was to just face reality and put an end to any illusions that he and Steve ever had a chance or that they could go back to how things used to be. There was no going back. He knew a lost cause when he saw one. And this… this was a lost cause. There was nothing else to do but to let go.

If there was something Tony Stark was _exceptional_ at, it was letting go. Because at the bottom of the bottle, everything simply became dispensable.

He just wished that it had hurt Steve as much as it had hurt him. As much as it was still fucking hurting him. Fat chance.

“Jesus, Stark—get out of this funk,” Tony slurred his self-chastisement while he repeatedly knocked the back of his head against the wall. His head throbbed but the pain was still nothing compared to the hollow ache inside.

Picking the bottle up from being tipped over, Tony’s lips met the bottle’s again and drank deeply until there was nothing left. He chuckled humorlessly; he was slowly but surely polishing off the suite’s minibar, having already seen the bottom of a half-liter Glenfiddich Single Malt and now this scotch, the brand of which Tony couldn’t even remember.

Good. Loss of brain function was good. He wanted to shut down, stop thinking, so badly; he was willing to go to great lengths short of alcohol poisoning to do it.

He must have dozed off, half of his body slumped against the wall and the lower half splayed on the floor like an abandoned marionette, but he was jolted back to semi-alertness with the shrill ringing of this smartphone. He forced an eye open and groaned lengthily. Why couldn’t people just leave him be?

Forcing himself off the wall to crawl on the floor on his hands and knees, Tony retrieved his smartphone from the nearest bedside table and answered his phone. “—Lo?”

“Have you been drinking again, Stark?” It was Natasha.

“Still ‘m drinkin’. Wan’ join me?”

Silence. Well—more for him, then.

“You better be sober by tomorrow when we transport the mutagen, or so help me—“

“What’re you still doin’ here, Nat?”

“What do you mean what am I still doing here?” She was starting to become irritated by Tony’s drunken antics.

Chuckling, Tony garbled, “I mean why’re you supporting this? The Accords? Me? You don’ seriously believe in this oversight, accountability _bullshit_ , do you? And this is _me_ we’re talkin’ abou’ and you didn’ even think I was _qualified_ to be an Avenger ‘cause I’m a clusterfuck! No—seriously… what’re you still stayin’ arou’ for?”

There was a period of tense silence that Tony thought Natasha might have hung up on him already, until she spoke again. “While it may surprise you that I’m taking your side for anything, I actually think you have the right idea, Tony. Maybe because, like you, my impetus is guilt. I’ve worked outside the bounds of law and morals; I’ve been used as a weapon, I’ve killed, and for whom I was killing was not always clear to me. I’ve never been held responsible for the lives I’ve taken or the chaos I’ve caused. And believe it or not, things like that can weigh heavily on the conscience—or at least, what’s left of mine. I don’t know about you, but guilt is not a very good motivation. Because we can go our whole lives trying to make up for what we’ve done wrong and never feel like we’ve done enough.

“Maybe, like you, I don’t trust myself to know—and _do_ —what’s best for the greater number of people—maybe I never did… You cannot trust a broken clock to tell you the correct time. And that’s what we are, aren’t we? We’re _broken_. How I was trained and raised—it does something to a person, blurs the supposedly solid lines between what’s right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lies.

“And even without these similarities between the two of us, I would still take this position because we _are_ very dangerous people, and we need to be given boundaries as it’s always other people who pay for it if we’re not wise in our choices,” Natasha finished.

To Tony, at that very moment, she actually sounded nothing like the deadly ninja-spy-assassin that she was. She sounded like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. It might be because she’d had to face Barton out there earlier—her oldest friend, the guy who’d made a different call in the past, made her turn over a new leaf. It might be because she’d had to be at odds with Steve, with whom she’d developed a deep friendship, being part of the same team, running missions and training together for the better part of almost a year since Tony had tapped out.

There were many reasons for her to leave as there were for her to stay. Her mind may be with Tony, but Tony knew that her heart was definitely with Steve, but she was just too stubborn to go to him. Tony was going to make things easy for her. A secretive smile ghosted over Tony’s face. Natasha really shouldn’t be selling herself short because Tony believed that she, too, could make the hard moral choices for the sake of the greater good. Tony knew then that he did the right thing, and Natasha would learn soon what he had set in motion. He felt confident that, soon enough, Nat would realize exactly what to do.

“I think I’mma’nna stop drinking now. We have a long day tomorrow after all. Great chat, Nat. We ought’a do this more often, babe,” Tony slurred, fighting the drooping of his eyelids.

“Don’t ever call me that, and I just might think about it. Get some sleep, Stark.” And she cut the connection, but Tony could swear he heard fondness in her voice. Or maybe that was just the alcohol?

Tony fumbled with his phone through eyes reduced to slits. He really ought to rethink the design of the StarkPhone to make it more alcoholic-friendly. He’d be able to save a hefty amount in product testing because he could just test it himself. Giving up on the phone when he couldn’t navigate back to the homescreen with his drunken fingers, Tony slammed it against the floor with the screen facing up.

The screen lit up again and he was taken to the app for his Photos. He didn’t know why but he was suddenly drawn to it. Now, he wasn’t the type to take photos of everything funny, memorable or artsy; he wasn’t beneath voyeurism or taking pictures for possible blackmail material ten, maybe, twenty years down the road, though. But there were only a grand total of fourteen photos in his phone’s Photos folder.

With the exception of one photo accidentally taken of the underside of You’s main circuitry, judging by the quality and the angle from which the photo was taken, the rest of the pictures were taken all in one day:

Steve’s birthday celebrated on the Isles of Baime.

“Oh you must really be a fucking masochist, torturing yourself with these,” Tony groaned, regaining sudden sobriety. Bringing the screen closer to his squinted eyes, he clumsily scrolled through the few frozen moments he was able to capture in digitalHD: there was the two of them on the beach after their dive; there was one of them in the zoo with Steve in a rare moment of frivolity with an uncharacteristic derp face as he was pointing at lounging big cat in a paddock; there was one with their profiles on the mountaintop; and there was the most memorable one of Steve on the zip line, looking carefree and child-like in his excitement.

There was also that selfie they took through the front camera of Tony’s smartphone after their turn on the zip line. Tony thought it was either fucking hilarious or unbelievably heartbreaking that not even a week ago, he and Steve had been teammates, friends and _almost_ lovers. But now they were on opposing sides in a conflict that he still wasn’t quite sure if it’s worth fighting over or not.

Like getting sucker punched, however, Tony noticed the next selfie—more high resolution than the previous one—of the two of them, flushed and obviously pumped with adrenaline. Tony was looking straight at the camera with a toothy smile that was the most unpretentious he had ever seen on his own face. While Steve… Steve was… Steve was not looking at the camera at all, but at Tony with eyes shining with adoration and a small smile of unmistakable contentment on those lips.

This was the photo that Steve had grabbed his phone to supposedly erase in panicked haste but didn’t. He had said he blinked so the photo was no good, but it wasn’t true. Steve must know what he had looked like, and, having no desire for Tony to discover it, grappled with  
Tony for the phone to dispose of the evidence.

Yet here it was in its hi-res glory, making Tony’s heart flutter and break at the same time.

Tony exhaled forcefully, angry. Fuck it! Why wasn’t he inebriated enough to miss this? He could’ve lived his whole life without having to see this and he would’ve been happier for it, but no! Fate wanted to screw him over. Over and over, apparently.

His thumb hovered over the Delete icon. He hesitated. Hesitation wasn’t good. So he just resignedly placed the phone on his lap, clutching it in his semi-enclosed fist like a lifeline and a weapon.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Because there was no going back even after all this was over. But at least it _would_ be over soon, and Tony could, with hope, get back to his life of privileged misery—the one he was destined to live alone.

###

Steve and Scott were puttering around in Clint’s safe house’s kitchen preparing a meager breakfast at barely the crack of dawn when Clint called them into the den/war room for an emergency team conference. There was finally a breakthrough with one of Clint’s mystery contacts, but if the archer’s stony face was any indication, it wasn’t as substantial an information as they were hoping to get.

Clint made a show of rustling the paper on which he had haphazardly written his contact’s information on Zemo and recited, “Baron Helmut Zemo is the thirteenth in the line of the Zemo Barony. His grandfather was Baron Herman Zemo, a prominent Nazi supporter and financier of the then Nazi research division, HYDRA. Herman was killed in a base in Bulgaria with the successful incursion of the Howling Commandos led by Captain America in November of ’43—“

“—so he _has_ ties with HYDRA!” Sam interrupted with the excitement of a minor Eureka moment.

“This just proves his _grandfather_ was HYDRA. Doesn’t mean he, himself, is,” Wanda pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest. A pensive look was on her face.

“Hyenas don’t spawn deer; they spawn _hyenas_. If Zemo’s granddad’s HYDRA, then what are the odds that he is, too?” Sam argued.

“We can’t assume that, Sam,” Steve finally joined the discussion. “This information is flimsy. It doesn’t prove anything about Zemo’s personal ties to HYDRA. Maybe we should turn our attention to other concerns—like what the UN Subcommittee’s next play is going to be after the earlier attack in Lagos.”

Not a peep could be heard to issue from any of the other rogue Avengers. They were all clueless and without any idea as to how to proceed from here. Wanda was staring off into space; Scott, to occupy himself, was hard-faced as he tinkered with the portable radio he had been trying to fix before they went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast; Sam was chewing the inside of his mouth, probably still considering another line of argument about Zemo’s connection to HYDRA; Clint was tapping his finger against the paper he had read from, pensive; Bucky was brooding anew, detached from the rest of the group; and Steve was breathing deep sighs every thirty seconds or so to try to clear his head.

It was probably a blessing in disguise when three even and official-sounding knocks sounded from the front door. Clint appeared relieved to be opening the door to see who could be calling on them at that time.

Indignant pandemonium literally broke out when Clint opened the door to an inscrutable Natasha Romanoff.

“What are you doing here?” Clint asked, icily, his hand going up instinctively to his busted lower lip, which Steve could only assume was courtesy of none other than the Black Widow herself in their most recent tussle.

“I’ve come to point you, fools, in the right direction,” Natasha replied, self-importantly popping the gum she was chewing.

“Or possibly lead us to a trap, get us all in deep shit,” Sam accused, narrowing his eyes.

“Oh trust me, you don’t need me to get you in deep shit. Y’all are doing _just fine_ at that by yourselves,” she interjected, rolling her eyes.

“How’d you know we’d be here?” Steve asked, finally finding his voice after swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat upon seeing Natasha on their doorstep.

“What—like it’s hard? I’ve worked with Barton in the same agency for almost _ten years_ ; we know and use the same safe houses all over the world. The same protocol has been ingrained in us so deep, it’s become easier than breathing. It wasn’t difficult to zero in on where you’d be.” Natasha explained in a clipped tone, and then added, “look—we can keep playing twenty questions on your porch and you can stare at me until I’m nothing but a blob on your doormat, but I gather you’ve better things to do like, maybe, go after Zemo and HYDRA. So why don’t you invite me inside and we can get down to more important business?”

The group parted wordlessly to let Natasha into the safe house. And before anyone else could say another word, Natasha turned towards Steve, held out her hand and on her palm was a micro SD card. “Before you question my intentions and where my loyalty lies, I suggest you study this. Everything you need is here: Zemo’s activities for the past ten months, bank transactions, weapons purchases, phone conversations, email communications, his hand in the Hamburg incident, his connection to Rumlow—“

“—Rumlow?—"

“—wait, what? Rumlow’s _alive_?!”

Clint and Steve interrupted at once, surprised at the information out of Natasha’s lips. The others just contented themselves with listening and watching the exchange.

“Yes, he’s alive. He was in Lagos, Nigeria yesterday and he goes by the call sign _Crossbones_ now. Everything is in the micro SD card, Steve,” said Natasha, losing her initial guardedness and regaining her composure and characteristic Zen. She grabbed Steve’s hand and gingerly placed the SD card on his palm.

“Why are you passing us this information? Aren’t you supposed to be in Stark’s camp?” Sam asked, still obviously suspicious.

“Is this information not what you’ve been after?” Natasha answered with a sneer. “And this isn’t about who’s teaming up with whom. This is about bringing down the bad guys—the _real_ bad guys. Contrary to what you might think, Tony is _not_ the enemy.”

Steve’s breath hitched in his throat at the passing mention of Tony’s name. He hoped no one had noticed his momentary reaction.

Clint took a tentative step towards Natasha but defensively crossed his arms over his chest. “But here you are, abandoning Stark and throwing your lot in with us?”

“I’m here because you were right in your suspicions about Zemo, but this doesn’t mean that Tony had it completely wrong. We aren’t gods; we can’t even be trusted to always do what’s right for us—what makes us think we can always do right by other people? We‘re just flawed humans; we err—we make mistakes. So we have to have limitations. We have to have accountability.” Natasha unapologetically met the eyes of each and every one in the room, even Bucky as she said her piece. “We can’t let HYDRA control us—doesn’t mean we can run around unchecked because we are very dangerous people.”

There was pregnant silence after Natasha’s declaration. Steve couldn’t begin to surmise what the others might be thinking. He could only account for his own thoughts and emotions about this whole conflict. Of course he had always known that Tony and Natasha weren’t completely wrong; Steve could see their point. Maybe in the hands of different people with pure intentions, the spirit of The Accords would’ve been something that Steve could partially agree with. He didn’t like the concept of prior control because he was of the opinion that theirs was still the safest hands when it came to deciding whether or not to respond to an incident, but he couldn’t also say that his friends’ position was completely misplaced.

Steve knew, in particular, where Tony was coming from. After that night that Tony had bravely shared with him what he’d had a nightmare about, of course, Steve knew and could understand Tony’s motivation. But Steve had learned his lesson the hard way with the fall of SHIELD. The establishment of SHIELD, too, had been noble and oriented towards the protection of greater good, but even that had ended up being corrupted by HYDRA. He had sworn control off for good after that. He would rather go rogue and reinvent himself as a wildcard than be subjected to control especially when he couldn’t be sure exactly who it was doing the controlling.

“What do we do now?” Scott asked, voicing the one question that Steve knew was in everybody’s minds. “It’s not as if we know what their next play is.”

“At least someone from your ranks knows the right question to ask,” Natasha chided, looking at Steve from out of the corner of her eye. Since she didn’t ask who Scott was, it could be reasonably expected that Natasha knew about him because that was just how she was. “They failed to get what they were after in Lagos, so we can hazard a guess that they _will_ try again.

“Stark Industries has taken custody of the mutagen from the IFID as a last ditch effort to protect it from you and _other_ interested parties. We’re transporting it from Heathrow to JFK later this morning. The plane’s taking off at 1038,” she said with a deadpan voice, looking at her wristwatch.

There was silence as everyone digested the information they had just been given.

“ _Fuck this shit_! Why do we need to come up with a convoluted plan to bait Zemo and HYDRA? Why can’t Stark just relinquish control of that mutagen to us?” finally voiced Clint, frustrated. “If we already have evidence about Zemo’s affiliation with HYDRA, that makes _us_ in the right and Stark’s continued support to the UN Subcommittee _and_ The Accords would make him an abettor to a terrorist organization.”

“Not _all_ of the members making up the UN Subcommittee is HYDRA though,” Steve pointed out. “Zemo is a respected member of the UN; he has the public support and—after the Hamburg incident—the public sympathy. We are rogue superheroes who refuse to be subjected to government control—much like lawless criminals. If our only strategy is to pit our evidence against Zemo’s reputation, who do you think the rest of the Subcommittee and the public will side with?”

“But they might not try again to gain possession of the mutagen at Heathrow because it will be too heavily guarded. They know that you’d be expecting them—that it’s a trap,” Scott contributed, looking around the group for affirmation.

“It could just as easily be a trap for _us_ , too, you know,” Sam countered, his eyes still narrowed towards Natasha and suspicion was still plainly written on his face. Natasha squarely met Sam’s stare with a raised eyebrow as if in challenge.

The rest of the team all turned towards Steve, who was the undisputed leader and tactician of the group, waiting to see what his position was—who he was going to agree with.

Steve breathed a deep sigh, conflicted when it came to battle strategy for the first time in a long time. He wanted to call out Zemo, much like what he had done to Rumlow and Alexander Pierce during the tussle in the Triskelion, but it would be so easy for Zemo to hide behind his reputation despite the evidence now in their hands, ignore the open challenge and the public would be none the wiser as to his real loyalties. No—they have to draw Zemo out to expose him. And for that, Zemo and his HYDRA militia must be in the airport for an all-out battle royal with both factions of the Avengers.

Steve, though, grudgingly saw the logic to Scott’s position that the heavily-guarded mutagen, by itself, might not be enough of a come-on to Zemo’s forces. They needed a good gambit; they needed something else that HYDRA would find plainly irresistible that would force them out into the open. He looked up and met Wanda’s wide-eyed gaze. Steve didn’t know if Wanda could read how his mind was turning. If she could, she wasn’t going to like it.

“If we’re there, they’ll be there,” Bucky piped up, finally breaking his silence in the presence of the rest of Steve’s team. He exchanged a meaningful look with both Steve and Wanda, catching on to what Steve was thinking too quickly. “Danvers opening.”

Confused looks were shared among the rest of the occupants of the room.

“Chess move. They want the mutagen; they want The Winter Soldier; and they want the only living Enhanced they successfully created. They won’t be able to resist,” concluded Bucky with a resigned clench of his jaw.

Steve hated to admit it, but it was as a good a plan as any. He hung his head and gazed at the micro SD card in the palm of his right hand. They needed a redundancy to make sure that the enemy would go down in flames and to ensure that risking Bucky and Wanda would pay off.

“You have four hours to make sure they’ll be there,” countered Natasha, lips curling whether with grudging respect or deep-seated mistrust for Bucky, Steve couldn’t tell. “I have to be getting back. If it’s going to be a battle royal, then Tony’s gonna need all hands on deck.”

At the mention of Tony’s name again, Steve couldn’t take the twisting of his guts anymore and followed Natasha just as she was making her way outside of the safe house, leaving behind the rest of Steve’s team, who were dispersing in tense silence.

“Nat, hang on!” Steve called, stopping the redhead in her tracks. “How’s—how’s To—Sta… Tony?” He hesitated on what to call Tony. Steve felt like he’d lost the right to call the other man such a familiar name when he had turned his back on him. “Was he injured in Lagos?”

Natasha’s gray-blue eyes visibly softened as she might have detected the concern in Steve’s voice. “Not on the outside,” came the reply, which Steve couldn’t help but flinch at. “He’s… still the same devious genius. He believes in something and is willing to go to the ends of the world defending it.”

“I—uh—I…” Steve stammered. So OK he might not have thought this through—what he was going to say. He wanted to ask Natasha to apologize to Tony again in his behalf, to keep an eye out for Tony, make sure he was not overworking himself or keeping his injuries a secret as the genius-billionaire was wont to do. He wanted to tell Natasha to mind so many things about Tony, but he didn’t know where and how to begin. Steve knew this was the guilt speaking—guilt in combination with bone-deep regret. He didn’t know how this conflict would end, but Steve sure as hell hoped that Tony would see the end of it safe and sound.

It seemed like no matter what Steve did, he always ended up failing someone near and dear to him.

“I’m so sorry… For everything… I wish I can—I—I,” Steve uncharacteristically stuttered through his piece, wishing that his voice wouldn’t break. He clamped his lips shut and clenched his jaw to seize the reins on his emotions.

“I’m sure he is, too, Steve. I’m sure he is, too.” Natasha squeezed his hand in reassurance. “It’ll be over soon.”


	16. End of the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final confrontation takes place. And then there's picking up the pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honor of the Captain America: Civil War World Premiere that happened this week and made us, fans, so happy and excited!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's made their presence felt in the course of updating this story. I still love Kudos and comments so please don't be stingy in giving them! 
> 
> As always, I appreciate your telling me of any issues, typos, inconsistencies that you spot as you read this.
> 
> Written to the tune of "Empty" by Click Five on loop. Because I love heart-wrenching tunes like that...
> 
> Enjoy y'all!!  
> ___

It was a testament to the cutting edge technology of the suit’s ventilation system that Tony was able to keep his cool in the humid July weather ranging from mid to the high twenties as he stood, resolute like a sentinel, on the airport tarmac of Heathrow, looking at the Stark Industries jet as it was being loaded with supplies, meager luggage and the strongbox bearing the highly-sought-after mutagen.

Craning his neck, Tony looked at Vision who was hovering some ways away and keeping a close eye on the jet from the air. Rhodey in his War Machine armor was doing circuits of the airspace every so often to check the perimeter. Black Widow was inside the plane, observing the conduct of the loading at close quarters while T’Challa, in his Black Panther suit, was right outside the loading bay of the jet probably filing his claws and looking menacing.

Any minute now, Tony was expecting things to go from controlled vigilance to frenzied melee. He was expecting the rogue Avengers faction to make an appearance as well as the very secret other interested parties that up to that time preferred to lurk in the shadows of the Avengers conflict, waiting in the wings for a chance to strike.

“Think they’ll show up?” Rhodey asked through the comms, directing his question to no one in particular.

“They’d be stupid not to,” Tony replied gravely. Rhodey, of course, didn’t know about the plan that Tony had set in motion, which he knew Vision and Natasha had carried out to perfection. The genius-billionaire wasn’t sure if the ‘they’ Rhodey was referring to was the same ‘they’ that Tony had in mind. But one way or another, this conflict would end today. Whether they’d all make it through unscathed was the more pressing question.

After a considerable interval, Natasha piped up on comms from her post inside the jet, “loading is almost done, Iron Man.”

Where were they? Had Tony miscalculated? He was never as good a strategist as the Captain, but he had always believed himself to be smart enough to make a straightforward plan—he had kept himself alive for this long, had he not? His brains must count for something!

“Any minute now…” Tony trailed off, narrowing his eyes from behind the HUD. “Keep your eyes open, guys.”

Even with that warning, the first explosion of a nearby airport loading van still surprised the team for all of three heartbeats before they collected themselves and Assembled on the right flank of the Stark Industries jet to prepare for their adversaries.

Tony had to admit there was something impressive and formidable about Cap’s faction when they watched the other group congregate some distance away.

What was the world coming to when friends fought with friends so many times in just as many days all in defense of their principles, none of which were outright illogical and wrong? But the genius-billionaire could recognize that this needed to be done if only to identify and smoke out who the real enemy was. They needed to be convincing in this face-off to lull the enemy into a false sense of victory. It would be when the enemy started believing they’d won that they’d fall into hubris enough to make a misstep. And Tony would be ready for that.

“FRIDAY, are my satellites aligned and ready to record everything?” Tony asked on his private comm channel.

_“We’re all set for you, Boss.”_

“And the micro SD card—how’s its access log looking?”

_“It’s been accessed five times since the file was created. I’m detecting a considerable dump of its contents in the CIA servers, judging by the military-grade firewalls that took us all but 2.45 minutes to break remotely—“_

“That means the Captain did what I predicted he’d do and passed along the information to Carter as a redundancy. Get ready to hijack the self-contained systems of the airport, the bogeys’ comms channels and suit cameras, and I want _everything_ recorded, FRIDAY—I want audio recordings of their comms for slips of the tongue; I want facial recognition, identifying marks on skin and on their uniforms, nameplates, remote blood scanning for matching purposes; if someone sneezes, I want it caught on camera; if someone whispers a name with their dying breath, I want to know their social security numbers. This is the most sophisticated and widespread commandeering of multiple self-contained systems we’ve ever attempted, but you’re ready, my sweet. You can do this,” Tony encouraged his AI, clenching his jaw as he watched the other faction run towards them in formation.

“Let’s go to war,” Tony spoke over his team’s comms and launched himself in the air to hover and then rush towards the oncoming combatants. Widow and Panther started running while War Machine and Vision made like him and flew towards the direction of Cap’s team.

An eerie silence filled Tony’s ears as he flew towards the rogue Avengers save for the furious beating of his heart and the occasional beeping of his HUD. He forcefully swallowed any trepidation and briefly closed his eyes to access a morsel of inner peace.

“FRIDAY, alert me for incoming bogeys,” Tony ordered through his private channel again just as he braced himself for the initial onslaught.

He had almost forgotten how hard Steve could hit. Maybe a portion of him was expecting that, with the revelation of Zemo’s true loyalties through concrete evidence that Steve had been after all this time, the Captain would exercise a bit of restraint in his attacks since Tony and his faction weren’t the real enemies. But Tony guessed it was too much to ask. They needed to look convincing after all; so maybe Steve was just taking that to heart.

For his part, Tony was quick to let go of any lingering hope that the Captain would slack off on his assaults. So he gave as good as he got, matching Steve blow for blow. He even got in a good chest piece shot to Steve’s clavicle that, Tony guessed, must have felt like being walloped by a baseball bat. But since Tony had designed everyone’s uniforms so effectively with utmost comfort and maximum protection as considerations, it didn’t really do as much damage as Tony wanted. For the first time, Tony resented the quality workmanship on his uniform designs.

Tony was just getting into the groove of battling with Captain America when FRIDAY piped up on his comm, _“incoming bogeys on the jet’s left flank, ETA 48 seconds. Airspace is no longer clear, detecting cloaked jets but the exact coordinates and ETA are unclear.”_

“I hate to break this party that’s just getting good, but I’m needed elsewhere. Catch you later, Cap.” Tony blasted off on the power of his full thrusters, leaving Steve on the ground to fly towards the jet to head-off the real parties he’s been waiting for. “Widow, incoming bogeys on the left flank. I’ve broken off from your fray to head them off. Don’t come after me; hold out for as long as you can—we need them fully committed into what they’ve come here to do before we turn our attention to them, otherwise, they will detect that our tussle with Cap’s faction is just an elaborate bait,” Tony informed his team, and instructing FRIDAY, said, “FRIDAY, I want confirmation if Zemo or Crossbones is anywhere nearby.”

It was easy for Tony to emotionally detach himself from the disquiet of having to fight Steve for the second time in two days and to engage the incoming bogeys. It was a much-needed distraction. He took on the suspected HYDRA onslaught by himself, keeping them off the SI plane.

_“Confirming the presence of Crossbones. He is currently in a three-way tussle with the Winter Soldier and Black Panther. No sighting of Zemo within a two-kilometer radius of the SI jet. Uploading all gathered data on identified bogeys to your private server.”_

“Zemo doesn’t want to get his hands dirty it seems. Dump all gathered data on the internet, including our evidence against Zemo and bombard the CIA, MI5 and the UN Subcommittee servers with everything we have so far. Let them put two and two together.

“Widow, time to breakaway to engage the real enemy.

“FRIDAY, patch me through to Cap’s team’s comm channel,” Tony instructed, his attention half commanded by the attacking black-clad combatants.

“Avengers!” Tony greeted as jovially as he could given the fact that he was presently pummeling opponents coming at him in a steady stream of black-clad bodies. “It might interest you to note that the real enemy is here. Why don’t we go say hi?”

There was a barrage of comments, invectives, garbled statements from members of both Avengers factions, but one stood out quite clearly to Tony. “Iron Man,” said Steve, fully channeling Captain America.

“Captain,” he acknowledged, detached.

“Thank y—“

“Thank me if we live through this,” Tony interrupted, flying towards a group of hostiles and knocking through their ranks like a bowling ball through pins.

A steady stream of warnings, heads-up and alerts came through the comms as the Avengers, for the time being, united against the suspected HYDRA militia. There were arrows, scarlet energy, Infinity Stone beams, repulsor blasts, bullets and flying bodies coloring the air over the tarmac where the SI jet was still parked. Clouds of fiery explosions reducing airport loading vans into useless heaps of metal and plastic added to the riot.

Tony was zooming through the air, picking out stragglers in the perimeter and fighting as far away from the form of Captain America as possible. And yet, every once in a while, he found his eyes drawn to where the Captain was, just to satisfy himself that Steve was there fighting _with_ him instead of against him like yesterday.

It was a good thing he was looking, too, because at that moment, a prototype beam-emitting weapon was directed at an oblivious Captain America who was busy fighting Crossbones. Without hesitating, Tony dropped at the Captain’s six o’clock and used the crossed forearms of his armor to shield against the concentrated beam. It, for a moment, cut off the power from the chest piece and scorched the metal on Iron Man’s forearms and torso. If he weren’t so hyped with adrenaline, Tony would’ve felt the skin on his left forearm sting and burn.

Resorting to emergency back-up power without a moment to lose, he directed the power towards the chest piece, and waving his arms, banished the beam off his midriff and countered with a focused beam of his own through the suit’s chest piece. The prototype weapon and its wielders were no more.

Steve turned to him with a look that Tony couldn’t read, so he saw it fit to just launch himself back to the skies before it got any more awkward.

Maybe if Tony had not been distracted with defending against an attack directed at Steve, he would have anticipated what happened next.

“To—!” Rhodey’s comm was cut off abruptly, but the panic was unmistakable in that lone syllable. It wasn’t clear who had taken a shot at Rhodey or if he was merely caught in some crossfire, but the next thing Tony knew, Rhodey was hurtling towards the ground in Mach velocity, out of power and control with the War Machine armor’s chest piece blown out.

“Rhodey!” Tony hollered, cold with fear. He gave the thrusters everything he got and tried to reach for his friend. But it wasn’t enough to catch up to the plummeting body and the armor hit the dark asphalt with a sickening crash.

He half-hovered, half-ran to where his best friend had fallen, collapsing on the ground, he yanked his helmet off and cradled Rhodey’s head on his armored lap before plucking the face plate off the War Machine armor. Rhodey’s nose was bleeding and he was unconscious; the extent of the damage was unclear. “No, no, no… Rhodes… Rhodes… Come on, buddy, wake up,” Tony murmured, placing a still-gauntleted but shaking hand over Rhodey’s blown out chest piece. He had known it was too ideal, too unlikely that they were going to pull through this unscathed, had he not?

He didn’t want to have to extricate the armor in the event that certain parts of the exoskeleton had pierced through flesh and might cause profuse bleeding once dislodged. But he didn’t know what else to do. “Nat! Rhodey’s down,” he confirmed through the comms.

 _“Sir, Interpol are in the area to provide back-up on the ground and MI5 aircrafts have entered Heathrow airspace to render assistance to round out the suspected HYDRA hostiles,”_ FRIDAY reported through his earpiece, but it was as if her voice was coming from the bottom of a well. His attention was directed at nowhere else but Rhodey. And the only sound filling his ears were the furious pounding of his heart and the shallow breaths out of his mouth.

Tony didn’t know how long he had knelt there in the crash site of the War Machine armor, cradling Rhodey’s unconscious body and wanting to heave until his stomach was empty and his lungs and throat burned. He was only brought back to the present when Natasha cradled his cheeks in her palms and bored her concerned gray-blue eyes into his vacant brown ones.

“Tony… Tony…” Natasha kept calling his name, but he felt like he was dreaming, that he was looking at himself from a trapdoor in the sky.

“Tony!” The genius-billionaire was jolted out of his stupor by a combination of Natasha squeezing his face between her palms and screaming his name. “You have to let go of Rhodes for medevac. The MI5 medics are here to attend to him.”

“He’s not staying here; I’m taking him to Avengers Tower,” Tony argued with Natasha, grimacing at how his voice sounded so much like a child’s. “They might not—they might…” Tony wanted to say that these people might not take care of him as well as Tony’s doctors and medical personnel would. Because this was Rhodey, and Rhodey was his best friend. And he would never forgive himself if something bad were to happen to Rhodey. It was his fault, he had been too slow.

“They’ll take good care of him. You have to let go, Tony. The sooner they look him over, the sooner we can transport him back to the US,” Natasha reasoned, patiently, as if she really were speaking to a confused child.

Tony watched, dazed and anxious, as four men lifted Rhodey off the ground, armor and all, onto a gurney to wheel him to a medevac chopper to take to the closest medical facility. Tony knew that, to an observer, he looked feeble and alarmingly out of sorts, so he tried to compose himself as best as he could, stood up and stuffed his head back in the suit’s helmet.

“Nat, are we good here?” Tony asked from behind the piercing blue eyes of Iron Man and with an electronic voice that masked how shaken he really felt inside.

“Yeah, we’re good. We’re all locked down. Go to Rhodes; make sure he’s alright,” Natasha replied with a soft nod.

With barely a fleeting look to the rest of the Avengers scattered on the tarmac and to Steve who was standing a few paces behind Natasha and whose eyes were shining with something eerily like concern, Tony fired up his repulsors, looked to the skies and launched himself to the air to follow in the wake of Rhodey’s medevac chopper.

###

Helmut Zemo vanished from the face of the planet like smoke after the confrontation in Heathrow where a lot of suspected HYDRA mercenaries, guns-for-hire and thugs were rounded out, and the evidence tying him to HYDRA had made all international news channels and social networking sites. The UN Subcommittee was now the one facing a General Assembly inquiry as to the allegiance of its members and motivation behind the ratification of The Accords, the mandates of which, for all intents and purposes, were now under injunction until further notice.

It’s been nine days since the battle royal in Heathrow and the rogue Avengers were all back at base to undergo some sort of debrief that had been put on hold while they dealt with the fallout of the unmasking of Zemo and the involvement of HYDRA in The Accords.

Everyone involved in the Heathrow affair, including Bucky, was there, except for Jim Rhodes who had been injured in Heathrow, T’Challa who was still in the UN Subcommittee offices picking up the pieces after the conspiracy that had escaped his notice, and Tony Stark himself.

“I am happy to report that Jim is officially out of danger. A medical bulletin has just been issued by the battery of doctors in Avengers Tower, confirming that James Rhodes is now fully conscious after having been under an induced comatose in the wake of his two hundred-foot fall in Heathrow resulting in five broken ribs, a cracked clavicle and hip, a collapsed lung, abrasions in the torso, lacerated deltoideus, serratus anterior and gastrocnemius, and a concussion,” Maria Hill read off a report to a subdued group of superheroes assembled in the Avengers facility’s largest boardroom. “Stark insists on having Jim stay under 24-hour observation in the Tower for a couple more weeks before he gets clearance to go back here. But it will be up to Steve if we’re going through with a debrief today despite Jim’s absence.” Maria turned to Steve as did the rest of the team then present.

“I have to admit I don’t know what still needs to be discussed. We are all on the same page regarding what happened in Heathrow,” Steve began, turning to each of his teammates as he spoke. “Perhaps an explanation is owed to the rest of the team who had stayed on by Tony’s side during the conflict.”

Steve then set out to explain everything from the beginning: how Bucky had told them about Zemo’s affiliation and HYDRA’s plan to gain possession of the mutagen they’d developed while under the mantle of SHIELD; how they had engaged the help of Scott Lang in their initial plan to get evidence to prove Bucky’s information by hijacking the UN Subcommittee’s database; how they had subsequently called upon Clint who’d had to tap his contacts in the intelligence industry in the continuous effort to pin Zemo to HYDRA; how Wanda had gone to them so as not to be used and abused by HYDRA anew; and how Steve’s Avengers went to Lagos to head-off HYDRA to destroy the mutagen before HYDRA could get their filthy hands on it but they were stopped by Tony and the rest of the team.

The narration was followed by silence as everyone digested the story and how it all brought them to Heathrow and to where they were now.

“I want to apologize to the team—but mostly to Nat and Vision—for the fracture I have caused, the discord I wrought in the team. I was the one who had told Tony off for dissociating with us in creating Ultron, but I, myself, had gone and done the same thing. I recognize that mistake and again, I apologize.

“It’s just that…” Steve paused, unsure as to how to proceed from there. His team was his family—in this time and place where he had never belonged, the team had given him a reason to find his own unique place. But Bucky… Buck was his home, had always been his home. They were brothers and they always got each other’s backs. So when Bucky needed him, Steve had been quick to turn his back on everything else. He had been unfair to the team, but he hoped now that they could find it their hearts to understand him. And forgive.

“Bucky needed someone to believe in him. Bucky was—“

“It’s alright, Steve,” Natasha interrupted with an uncharacteristic softness to her otherwise battle-hardened eyes. “We know how much Bucky means to you. How much putting down HYDRA means to you. And I— _we_ …understand.” She leaned forward, smirking. “Just don’t go being all Lone Ranger on us about it the next time that something like this comes up. Bucky is your family,” and at this Natasha turned to look at Bucky who was still preferring to sulk in the corner, an outlier to this team. “But when are you going to get it through that stubborn skull of yours that we are your family, too? We watch each other’s backs. Bucky is no longer just your responsibility, Steve. He is ours now, too.”

“I couldn’t impose that upon you. You’d told me how the Winter Soldier had attacked you before. And Bucky himself had told me how he had been the weapon that killed Tony’s parents. I couldn’t just shove Bucky down your throats, force him on you only because he means so much to me. And you don’t owe me anything so you are under no compulsion to accept people into your circle of trust,” Steve reasoned. “And we didn’t have evidence against Zemo but Bucky’s word. I couldn’t let you throw your lot in with us when there was absolutely no reason for you to trust Bucky.”

Natasha breathed a deep sigh. “But we trust _you_. And so we would’ve found a reason to trust Bucky if we had only known all of this,” she said. But adding quickly, “ _but_ it’s water over the dam. Rhodes is fine and on his way to recovery; we’ve unmasked Zemo and The Accords is now on hold and, with T’Challa backing it, we might be able to negotiate some terms to arrive at a compromise. We have to figure out now how to move forward.”

“On that note, you guys might want to see this,” Maria interjected again, pointing a remote towards the huge television screen mounted on the wall of the boardroom.

It was a live news feed of a press conference being held in the lobby of the Avengers Tower. On the podium stood Tony Stark with his left forearm in a slim cast and sling. Steve noted the good-natured, darling of the press smile on Tony’s face, and yet Steve couldn’t help but notice the underlying tiredness and glum to those golden brown eyes.

There was a twinge of worry in his gut when Steve saw the cast. He hadn’t noticed Tony getting injured in Heathrow, but at least he’d had it treated and put in a cast as opposed to ignoring it and keeping it a secret from the team and his doctors, as was his habit.

 _“—release the evidence we had in our hands as well as live footage of the conflict as it was happening in Heathrow airport to incite interest in the public and the government bodies as to the real force behind the ratification of The Accords. That while the rest of the UN Subcommittee membership was not affiliated with HYDRA, Baron Helmut Zemo had maneuvered the body into expediting The Accords without any opportunity for us to voice our concerns and reservations regarding some of its terms,”_ Tony was saying on the screen like the self-assured superhero-tech magnate-billionaire that he was as his face was illuminated by flashes of innumerable cameras.

A question was raised by a journalist among the multitudes in attendance: _“But did you not already cede authority over the Avengers Initiative from Stark Industries to the UN Subcommittee? What’s going to happen to that? The next time there is a catastrophe, will the Avengers respond?”_

Tony nodded to the reporter, acknowledging her question. _“Stark Industries Legal has just filed a document with the UN Subcommittee currently under the temporary leadership of King T’Challa, stating that we are taking back our authority over the Avengers Initiative while The Accords is under injunction. But that we remain open and receptive to any possibility of negotiating some of the more stringent terms of The Accords. SI has assured the UN Subcommittee that we, along with The Avengers, will be in full cooperation to arrive at a version of The Accords that everyone will be happy with. So for now, the next time that there is a catastrophe, which I am sure none of us would want, The Avengers will still respond as they see fit, save and protect as many as they can, but should they be called upon to explain their actions after the fact, they won’t be shying away from any accountability, if any.”_

Steve breathed a relieved sigh. He loved the sound of that. He was never one for lawlessness and not answering to anyone anyway; he just didn’t like the idea of prior control and being left to wait while bureaucrats debated where and when to point them like mere weapons.

Another question: _“The Accords had a mandate as to the matter of bringing The Winter Soldier to justice, would that still be honored, especially considering the latter’s participation in aid of The Avengers in Heathrow?”_

 _“We have also discussed the matter of The Winter Soldier in that recently filed document. Stark Industries is taking custody of and full responsibility for Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes. I will have a team assembled to work closely with The Avengers to oversee the decommissioning of The Winter Soldier and the recovery of Sgt. Barnes, who happens to be one of the decorated heroes of the last World War, and as such, it is to the US government’s interest as well to ensure Barnes’ recovery and reinstitution to society,”_ Tony answered with a distracted lick of his lower lip before he averted his gaze away from the cameras with wistfulness that Steve almost didn’t catch.

Steve’s heart felt so full that it throbbed painfully in his chest. After everything he had done, Tony could still find it in his heart to do this when he didn’t owe Steve or Bucky shit. Steve didn’t know why people always thought—why _he_ , himself, had once thought—that Tony was a selfish, arrogant megalomaniac. Because while flawed and broken, occasionally arrogant and sarcastic, Tony was _not_ selfish. He was actually the most selfless man one could ever hope to meet, but that selflessness was hidden behind layers and layers of disdain, rage, regret, acerbic wit, illusory cockiness and secret sadness.

If only it were as easy to ask for Tony’s forgiveness as it was to ask for the team’s, but it wasn’t. Because with Tony, Steve didn’t just hurt a brother-in-arms, but someone he could have had a romantic relationship with, for whom he had ended up caring so deeply and who must have also cared for him. Yet, Steve had still easily and quickly turned his back to that. And now it was too late—the moment to act had come and gone, never to be rekindled again.

Steve could still picture the pain in Tony’s eyes when they had faced each other on the rooftop hangar of the IFID in Lagos, and a lump formed in his throat anew. Looking at Tony now in the high resolution of the huge television, Steve could still see the resigned hollowness to those eyes, and it seared through his heart like a lance. He did this; he was responsible. He had irreversibly hurt the person he had come to realize he was in love with, but despite everything, Tony still did this for Bucky—and for him, because Bucky was important to him.

He wanted to look away from the television, but he couldn’t. His eyes were glued to Tony. Because this was the only way he could have Tony now.

 _“—The Avengers as ‘they’ instead of ‘we’. Does this mean you’re no longer part of The Avengers?”_ Steve wasn’t able to catch the beginning of the question, but his attention was gripped by the last part of it.

They had discussed it on the island, how Steve wanted Tony back on the team’s active roster, and Tony joked that he was going to think about it. Steve squeezed his hands into tight fists on his lap under the boardroom table, still hoping against hope that even if there was nothing else they could be—he and Tony could at least still be friends and teammates. That maybe Steve could still see Tony on movie nights, sit in front of him at breakfast, bring him coffee in his workshop, tell him to stop overworking himself, fuss over him when he keeps his injuries a secret and just see him and secretly carry a torch for him—even just that, Steve would take it.

 _“I haven’t been part of The Avengers for a little over a year now, but I have stayed on as a consultant, financer and armorer. And I am willing to stay on but only in that capacity. I think that with the opening of possible renegotiations for a new Accords, I can be more helpful as Tony Stark, major shareholder of Stark Industries than as Iron Man, Armored Avenger. I will happily leave the Avenging to Captain America and his able crew,”_ Tony said with a tight smile.

Steve must have looked so obviously pained because of Tony’s answer and the way the genius-billionaire said ‘Captain America’ like the words caused him physical agony, that when he had snapped out of his introspection, he found himself the subject of the sharply observant eyes of Natasha. The rest of the press conference became mere background noise for Steve as he fought to get a handle on his emotions so as not clue Natasha in on anything.

“I guess that settles the matter of how we move forward then. If I may, Captain. I would like to help Sergeant Barnes recover from HYDRA’s handiwork. I believe my ability may come in handy,” Wanda volunteered, trying to steer Natasha and Steve’s attention away from the deeply aggrieved expression painted on the Captain’s face.

“Thank you, Wanda,” Steve thanked her with a feeble smile.

It was easy to occupy his mind with inconsequential thoughts after that. But Steve knew that, lurking in the surface, there would always be thoughts of Tony and those hollow brown eyes.

The days that followed were filled with trying to get back into some kind of routine: wake up at the crack of dawn, take his run around the compound, train with his teammates, oversee the others’ training, sit and talk with Bucky, meet with the point persons of each of the departments running the facility, attend movie night or whatever nightly team bonding activity was scheduled, draw a bit before bed, sleep fitfully thinking about Tony. Rinse and Repeat.

The days turned into a week. The week into a fortnight. He re-established his routine, but it didn’t get any easier. The days filled with activity and companionship, Steve could live with easy. It was the nights that was the problem. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop thinking about Tony. He didn’t know what was harder: dreaming about dancing with Tony in the moonlit cove, feeling the ghost of Tony’s kisses on his lips; or dreaming about Tony’s sad, accusing eyes when they faced off against each other in Lagos.

Either way, Steve always woke up with wetness in his eyes and an almost whimper in his lips.

One time, Steve even seriously considered thrashing their command center console so he could have an excuse to call Tony to tell him that an equipment of theirs had broken down, just so Steve could talk to him and look forward to seeing him again, if only for a short time, if only from afar. But just as he was really debating the pros and cons if it, he was forced out of his bad thoughts by Natasha’s summons through their intra-compound communications system, announcing that Jim Rhodes was back.

Jim looked every inch like someone in the middle of recovering from having fallen two hundred fifty feet in Mach velocity whilst enclosed in a three hundred-pound armor. He was still swathed in bandages and his head was still wrapped in gauze but at least, he had a good-natured smile on his face. That smile fell a smidge when he laid eyes on Steve.

Steve couldn’t blame him, really.

The tension escalated a bit when they had moved to the communal dining area and Bucky was there, nursing a bowl of yogurt. Jim eyed the former brainwashed assassin with wariness, but after the rest of the team piled into the room with smiles of welcome and hugs were given gingerly to the injured man, the tension broke.

“Don’t get me wrong, man. I’m always wary of people I’ve just been recently introduced to. It’s nothing to do with you,” said Jim with a slight smile before nodding once at Steve by way of reassurance that he would give Bucky a chance to earn his friendship. That was all Steve needed—an assurance that members of his new family would find it in their hearts to welcome his family from the past with an open mind.

“So how was your _vacation_?” Natasha jokingly asked, taking a dainty sip of tea.

“It was nuts. Tony either vanished for days on end working on something or other in the workshop or fussed over me constantly short of driving me absolutely insane. But since I missed hanging out with that asshat, this recovery period-slash-vacation couldn’t have come at a better time,” Jim answered, patting his bandaged head to make sure the dressings had not been dislodged.

“What about Tony? We saw that he had a sling on when he gave that press conference about two weeks ago. How is he?” Natasha asked by way of follow-up.

“He got a nasty burn on his left forearm, which he’d miraculously let his medical team treat. He’s still the same old Tony. In my opinion, he still keeps crazy hours locked up in that workshop of his. I think he must still be looking for Banner or something. He mentioned it a few times to me,” responded Jim, directing his answer to Natasha in particular since the matter of Dr. Bruce Banner was undoubtedly Natasha’s top concern. “Nothing to report on that matter though.”

“Regardless, it’s good to hear that he hasn’t given up looking for Bruce. He shouldn’t be doing that alone, though. If he needs help, he need only ask,” said Natasha, taking another sip of her tea.

“Bruce is our friend, too, after all,” said Clint, echoing Natasha’s sentiment. “I mean, I’m officially off the active roster of The Avengers as well so if Tony needs help looking for Bruce, I can pop in on him in midtown once in a while. Farm life gets boring sometimes; you can only milk so many cows before it starts getting old really fast.”

“Oh Tony has help. He’s not alone in the Tower,” Jim replied, sneaking in a gulp of his coffee.

“Pepper? But I thought they’d broken up?” Steve asked, finally joining the conversation. If the matter of Bruce was Natasha’s concern, the matter of Tony’s well-being was Steve’s. He knew he was again torturing himself by wanting more information if Tony had somehow fixed things with Pepper, but if this was the only way he could have _something_ about Tony, he’d take it.

“No, not Pepper. They _have_ broken up and I think she’s moved out even before they were officially over. Tony’s taken on a new housemate—a science geek like himself, Peter Parker—I think his name was. He and Tony were thick as thieves, vanishing in that workshop together for days on end,” Jim recounted.

“Peter… Parker… Where did they meet?” Steve asked again as casually as he could. He couldn’t for the life of him remember if Tony had mentioned a Peter Parker while they hung out in the Isles of Baime. But Steve was interested, alright. Even if it the information was causing a painful twinge in his insides, he wanted to know. He wanted to know if Tony was already moving on from his near-miss with Steve and Steve’s subsequent abandonment.

“Some science convention that Tony didn’t even want to go to at first. But now, he’s mighty thankful he went after all.” Jim smirked, no doubt recalling how Tony must have had a conniption, resisting the invitation, but finally dragging his feet to go with a diva-like roll of his eyes. In his mind’s eye, Steve could almost see it himself.

The Captain smiled wistfully—at the new information about Tony’s present company and at the memory of Tony’s antics. At least, the pain that Steve had caused was behind Tony now. The genius-billionaire has someone new—a scientist, like himself—Tony’s equal, possibly in every way that mattered.

The conversation was steered to Clint’s family and his eldest’s recent birthday when Jim snapped the fingers of his uninjured hand, remembering something. “Which reminds me, speaking of gifts, Tony told me to hand you this, Steve. I believe this is his birthday gift to you.” Jim reached for the pocket of his duffel, resting at the foot of his stool, and produced a box roughly the size and weight of a tablet.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat and, opening the box, found himself staring at Tony’s gift to him for his birthday—the custom-made StarkTab, the one he had asked the restaurant attendees to deposit in his room before he and Tony made their way to the moonlit cove. Tony remembered to take it back States-side and was now returning it to its rightful owner. Steve didn’t know what to make of this.

He fought the trembling of his fingers as he fired the contraption up. But there was nothing new in it apart from the books and the two drawings that they had come up with on the night of his birthday. He was hoping to find a message from Tony—a book, a doodle, _something_ —that would signal to him about Tony’s emotional state, if there was anything, _anything at all_ , to tell Steve not to lose hope, that there was still hope for them.

But there was _nothing_. Was that also, in itself, a message from Tony?

He closed his eyes to collect himself before looking back up at his team—his family. Thankfully, they were all occupied in animated conversation to notice his melancholy.

Steve started to wonder if he could ever move on from this, if the time would ever come that the memory of Tony, the Isles of Baime and what could’ve been would stop causing Steve such misery.


	17. "Everyone Leaves Me."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha calls Steve out on his pining. Steve and Tony confront each other. Oh and there's a cameo from Peter Parker!

Steve burst into the Avengers facility training room, panting, after having run 50 circuits around the compound at top speed without letting up. He’d been pushing his limits farther and farther every couple days or so as a way to silence the persistent inner storms he’d been living with for some time now. His sleeping habits had never been more fitful than these past two weeks since Jim Rhodes had returned from his sojourn with Tony at the Avengers Tower, bearing news of Tony’s new friend and the gift that Tony had given Steve for his birthday, which they had celebrated together in the Isles of Baime.

He looked up from being hunched over, clutching at his side, to spot Natasha pacing the far side of the training room whilst on her mobile phone. Natasha turned on her heel and caught sight of Steve, too. She started walking towards him, still clutching the phone close to her ear.

“Clint insists on impressing upon you that if you need any kind of help, especially on the Bruce front, you should give him a call, Tony. He gets antsy in the farm and would like nothing better than to assist The Avengers in any capacity,” Natasha barked into the phone, letting Steve know that it was Tony at the other end of that phone line. “It’s either that or he starts shooting his own cows and goats dead, then Laura would scream her head off at him.”

Natasha paused, presumably to give Tony time to reply, but the reply must not have been to her liking because she started rolling her eyes in annoyance. “If you’re going to make calls like this a once-in-a-blue-moon affair, Tony, we don’t need it. You might only consider yourself a consultant, but we don’t. Don’t be a stranger, you jerk. Drop by once in a while.”

She paused again, before interjecting, “Steve’s here. Do you want to talk to him? I don’t even know why you’re calling me for updates on the status of the facility when you used to call Steve for this sort of thing.”

Natasha furrowed her brows, listening to Tony talk a mouthful-a-minute. And before she could say anything more or pass the phone along, she took it off her ear to stare at it. “He hung up on me… He stammered a half-assed excuse and then hung up on me,” said Natasha followed by a string of Russian curse words that, no doubt, compared Tony to the male reproductive organ in all known Russian terminology.

Steve could only hum and mumble something unintelligible in response. Of course, Tony wouldn’t want to talk to him. So he’s now resorted to calling Natasha for the usual how’s-the-facility-going-do-you-need-anything calls. He was of two minds whether that hurt more than saddened him.

That kind of call would have been the only way Steve could talk to Tony, hear the genius-billionaire’s voice. But of course, even that would be denied him.

“Are you alright, Steve?” Natasha asked without preamble.

Steve forced a grin on his lips and responded, “yeah I’m alright—why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re a shitty liar; do you know that?” Natasha scoffed, calling Steve out on his cover-up. “Don’t think for one second that I don’t notice you brooding and looking like a lost puppy whenever you think no one’s looking. Since before the face-off in Heathrow, I’ve been noticing that something’s wrong with you, most especially whenever the subject of Tony comes up.”

Steve kept mum even though he knew that with Natasha, it was a lost cause; the woman was a skilled interrogator, after all.

“Steve, what happened between you and Tony on that island vacation you were both in?”

“Nothing,” Steve denied, meeting Natasha’s pointed stare head-on, willing himself not to cave.

“Bull. Shit,” Natasha replied, narrowing her eyes at her supposed-to-be commanding officer. “You’re _pining_. You always want to know where he is, how he is. You perk up at the mention of his name, but sulk and fall into depression immediately after. You looked both devastated and murderous when Jim told us about his new friend. Don’t tell me that nothing happened, Steve, because _something_ obviously did.”

Steve hung his head and breathed a deep sigh. What was the use of hiding it from Natasha? It wasn’t as if things would change for the better if he kept all of this bottled up inside…

“I might have fallen in love with him,” Steve finally admitted. It was the first time that the words were out in the open—the first time he had ever admitted outright to a third party that he had indeed fallen, and fallen hard and fast, for Anthony Edward Stark.

“Well, shit.” Natasha mumbled. If she was fazed by the revelation, she did a good job hiding it.

After a short period of thoughtful silence, Steve spoke up, raking a hand through his hair that was slightly wet with sweat, “whatever went on between us on the island doesn’t matter. The conflict because of HYDRA and Bucky saw to that. Besides, he’s already found someone new, who fits better with him, shares the same interests as him. He doesn’t need me.”

“You…are a dumbass if you think that,” Natasha scolded him. She would’ve probably hit him at the back of his head, but he must have looked so pathetic that Natasha took pity on him and stayed her hand. “Before you jump to conclusions, I suggest you talk to Tony if there’s any chance at a relationship with him at all. If there’s none, at least, you’d get closure and you can move on. If you don’t do that, he’ll always be the one that got away, and you’ll always be left wondering what could’ve been. Take it from me,” Natasha advised, her eyes becoming strangely gentle and glassy probably due to recollections of her own—because Steve knew that if there was anyone who knew about relationships that could’ve been, it was Nat.

“And don’t give me that crap that you don’t stand a chance with Tony because he wouldn’t have done what he did during the tussle with Zemo and HYDRA if he didn’t care for you—even just a smidge,” Natasha informed Steve, with a raise of her delicate eyebrow as if in challenge.

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed in sudden curiosity. “What do you mean? What did he do?”

“You don’t seriously think that the information in the micro SD card that you passed along to Sharon came from me, do you?”

Of course… Of course! It was _Tony_ …

“Tony had an epiphany to use Zola’s algorithm which he had studied, memorized and actually improved—if that was even possible—to look for ties between Zemo and HYDRA and he was right. As soon as the algorithm was applied, the information started flowing like silk. It was easy for Vision to process everything, have all the bases covered. Vision was the one who came to me, giving me the micro SD card and saying I would know what to do,” Natasha explained.

“At first it wasn’t clear to me what Tony was trying to pull—was he trying to set up a trap for you? So I went through the files in the micro SD card myself and realized that this was what you’ve been after. What you didn’t have so you couldn’t very well challenge Zemo like you challenged Pierce in the Triskelion.

“Tony couldn’t give it to you himself because he needed to appear, for all intents and purposes, like he was 100% on the side of the UN Subcommittee or Zemo would’ve been clued in that an elaborate bait was being set up to smoke him and his minions out. So he needed me.

“He wouldn’t have done that—played both sides, went against his own principles when it came to The Accords if he didn’t believe in you, if he didn’t _care_ for you, Steve,” Natasha concluded. “Talk to him; tell him how you feel. He just might surprise you.”

Steve chewed the inside of his bottom lip in thought. He just nodded once to Natasha to reassure his teammate. He had agonized on this long enough. It was time to talk to Tony and come clean. And if Tony would only give him a chance, Steve would spend the rest of his life making it up to him.

###

Tony tsked in frustration as the wire he was trying to solder to the head of a screw came loose without the necessary support of his left hand to keep the wire in place. Getting injured was a bitch; and getting treated for the injury by wearing a fucking cast for weeks and weeks was even more so. This was the reason he never liked getting checked out for injuries after a fight. He had always believed that getting some work done or some machine assembled was the better therapy and medication for any injury.

He wanted to throw a hissy fit at his doctors anyway for making him wear a slim cast forever for a _burn_ on his forearm, like, what the hell?! He had thought a good thick dollop of burn ointment would do the trick, but no! They made him wear a slim cast, dropping the words ‘second degree burns’ like Tony actually gave a rat’s ass.

Bent over the motherboard he was assembling with single-minded focus, he didn’t bother looking up when the pneumatic doors to the workshop opened to allow admission to someone. Thinking that it was only Peter, Tony looked up momentarily to give a grunted greeting, but was nearly startled out of his skin when it was actually Steve Rogers gawkily standing there.

“Jesus—Cap, what are you doing here? How did you get in?” Tony’s composure was suddenly shattered when he found the person he had been avoiding like the plague for almost a month now standing right smack in the middle of his place of Zen. “FRIDAY? Why didn’t you alert me as to Cap’s arrival?”

“I asked her not to,” was Steve’s prompt response. “I didn’t want to be met with some excuse to avoid having to see me—no. So I told FRIDAY not to alert you that I was coming.” The Captain looked ill at ease but resolute.

Tony’s brows furrowed as he practically spat, “I will have to reconfigure her protocols about levels of discernment.” How dare his own creations undermine him like this?! “So… What do you need, Cap?”

Steve’s face twitched, no doubt noticing Tony’s unmistakably impersonal use of ‘Cap’ instead of his name. Good… Tony wanted him to notice. Tony wanted him to _cringe_.

“I never got to thank you,” Steve said, still heroically ploughing on despite Tony’s lukewarm welcome.

“Don’t mention it,” came Tony’s curt reply. He knew this was bound to happen. That Steve would find out what Tony had done towards the end of their conflict, and, driven by a profound sense of moral obligation or duty, Captain America would want to thank him for his indispensable contribution. Breathing a pained sigh, Tony added, “so Nat told you, huh?”

“Yes, she did,” Steve admitted, clenching his powerful jaw. “Tony… I need to talk to you.”

“O—K… Exactly what have we been doing for the past four minutes then? Aren’t we talking already?” Tony averted his gaze away from Steve to give his attention back to the motherboard he was tinkering before he was rudely interrupted.

“We need to talk about what happened on the island.”

“What are you talking about? Nothing happened,” Tony interjected, tamping down his irritation. What could Steve possibly want from him? Why dredge this up now when Tony’s already started to get used to living with the pain of his inadequacy? Because that was what had happened, right? Steve left him on the island because he just wasn’t worth it.

“Yeah—and how long are you going to keep telling yourself that?” Steve uncharacteristically scoffed.

But the rising tension was shattered when Peter came charging into the workshop. “Mr. Stark, Sir, I think I might have tripped an alarm down at the lab because something positively _exploded_ in the culture chamber! I don’t know what it is because I already transferred the last sample I was working on to a— _anyway_ —I’m debating whether I should call the FDNY, but in any case, we might have to skedaddle, like, in the next 20 minutes to evacuate or something! I don’t know why FRIDAY did… not—“ Peter trailed off in his panicked spiel upon noticing Steve and Tony looking defensive and quite obviously in the middle of something.

The newcomer backed away with an apologetic grimace on his teenaged features. “Oh… shoot… I—is this a bad time? _Course_ it is a bad time. I’ll just make myself scarce then, Mr. Stark—“

“—hang on, Peter—It’s fine. This is Captain Rogers—Captain America—by the way,” Tony began by way of introductions, standing up from his work table and gesturing towards the people he was introducing to one another. “Cap, I would like to introduce Peter Parker. Peter is an Enhanced that SHIELD had been shadowing in absolute secrecy. He’s been helping me these past few weeks to crunch numbers and filter data pertinent to the Zemo-HYDRA business to help the UN Subcommittee as well as upgrade some stuff.

“I’ve invited Peter to crash as often as he needs and to be my apprentice—help me invent and research stuff—mostly as an after-school gig,” Tony explained, nodding towards Peter. The genius-billionaire was inwardly relieved for Peter’s interruption. Then, Tony reassured the younger man, “don’t worry about it, Petey. We have state-of-the-art fire prevention contingencies all over the place. With me living and mad sciencing here, we gotta. FRIDAY can make a vacuum in the lab to smother any possible fires. She’ll give you the all-clear, right FRIDAY?”

_“Affirmative, Sir. There’s nothing to be alarmed about, Master Petey. One of the equipment tripped and it was just a localized flash to compensate for the power fluctuation. I’ve already addressed it.”_

“Oh thank God! Thanks FRIDAY—you’re awesome! I’m sorry I interrupted your conversation, Mr. Stark. I’ll talk to you later then,” Peter said, waving at Tony sheepishly. “And it was nice to meet you, Cap!” Peter waved goodbye with a toothy smile before, rushing out of the workshop again like an Energizer bunny.

Tony sniffed, the corners of his mouth quirking into a barely discernible smile. Good ol’ Peter. He’d been such a huge help these past several weeks, both in Tony’s work and by way of sensible, intelligent company. It was an added bonus that Peter’s presence and the projects they’d started working on together were great distractions from Tony’s fucked-up personal life.

Noticing Steve looking intently at him with an unreadable expression, Tony schooled his own face back to indifference. So much for distractions. He started lamenting then that the lab explosion was just a false alarm. He could have used an emergency right now necessitating an evacuation in the next couple of minutes, then maybe he would not have to talk to Steve—or even look at Steve today. Or ever.

“Don’t you think he’s too young for you?” Steve asked, his voice on the verge of breaking—but maybe that was just Tony’s imagination.

“What are you talking abo—I’m not _dating_ him!” Tony denied, mortified. He went towards a table piled high with tools and spare parts and made to search for something on the mish-mash of stuff to avoid having to look at the blonde man again and practically hear his heart break just a little bit more. The subject of dating and having Steve in the same room with him were not doing him any favors in the matter of getting closure and moving on.

There was a long period of edgy silence when Tony pretended he was in his workshop alone while Steve stayed patiently waiting for Tony to look at him or yell at him or throw him out. But Tony wasn’t going to be the one to cave in first. So Steve did. “Please Tony… _Please_ don’t pretend that nothing happened on the island. Please talk to me.”

“There’s _nothing_ to talk about, Cap—”

“—we hung out; we had a date; we kissed—we _slept together_! That’s _not_ nothing,” Steve said, finally losing whatever precarious hold he had on his patience and raising his voice above the din of the workshop to try to get through to Tony.

“Oh yeah? Well then should we also discuss how you just up and _left_ me there without any word of explanation or goodbye and before I knew it, you were being tagged as a vigilante helping a brainwashed fugitive to take down the fucking UN?!

“Look… Rogers. I am not a blushing teenager who’d think that just because we’d held hands and fooled around, it was something worth talking about, or that I would owe you and you would owe me, or some such shit. But you couldn’t have had the _nerve_ —the face, what… the—the _courtesy_ to tell me that you were going to run off to aid and abet a fugitive?! Or have you forgotten that that’s what _friends_ are supposed to—“

“—I’m in love with you,” Steve blurted out in the middle of Tony’s steadily building tirade.

That shut him up, alright. It was like the entire workshop quieted down in breathless anticipation of Tony’s reaction to what Steve had just said.

Steve walked closer to him, one step at a time, until they were just within arm’s reach of each other. “I’m in love with you, Tony,” he repeated, quieter but with more conviction. There was no mistaking or masking the truth of those six words. “And I know I screwed up really bad but if you’d let me, I would spend the rest of my life making it up to you and proving to you how deeply I care, how much I want to have a relationship with you. Please… Just—“

But instead of pulling the broken pieces of Tony’s heart together. It broke him just a little bit more. He didn’t know he could get more broken than he already was. The back of his eyeballs started stinging. And to cover the torment that Steve’s words actually brought him, Tony started laughing, hollow and mirthless.

“You…are just a fucking _hypocrite_ , aren’t you?” Tony spat, squeezing his hands into tight fists on his side, or as tight a fist as his left arm’s slim cast would allow. “You gave me such _flak_ for keeping Ultron and Vision a secret from you and the rest of the team, but you’re also guilty of the same thing. You spout that ‘team togetherness’ horseshit but even you can’t walk the talk.” Even Tony could hear the coldness in his tone. “Forgive me if I’m not jumping for joy—now, I’m not an expert on _relationships_ or people skills, but even _I_ can recognize that what you did on the island? _To me_ … Friends don’t do that. And you certainly don’t do that to someone you’re saying you’re in love with or…or someone you say you want to try to have a relationship with,” Tony finished, glad that he was able to keep his voice even and near emotionless for his entire spiel.

Somehow, hearing about what Steve felt about him was not doing what it was supposed to do. Why? Because it was too fucking _late_ , that’s why. He was supposedly in love with Tony, but he had still chosen Bucky and left Tony in the absolute dark about everything! What kind of love was that?! Did he not trust Tony? Did he not trust Tony to understand? Tony would’ve gone to the ends of the world for Steve, regardless of the novelty of whatever relationship they could’ve had, but Steve left him up in the air.

And he was tired. Tony was _fucking tired_. Of always being left behind. Of trying to do right by people but somehow always falling short.

“You know this is what I get for jumping into something so soon after being dumped. It’s like I never learned anything—from Howard, from Pepper…from Bruce,” he said, giggling cheerlessly. “I’m not cut out for this—for _any_ of this because I am meant to be alone. I don’t know why I never noticed it before, but everyone leaves me. _Everyone_. _Leaves_. _Me_. I start caring for someone, but it’s not enough. _I’m_ not enough, and they just— _leave_ ,” Tony stated, breathing a shaky sigh, which he hoped Steve was too devastated to notice. “Pepper left me; Bruce left me. Even JARVIS left me. And _you_ left me, Steve. You…left me…

“Maybe… I’m just that type—the type who’s easy to string along and then leave behind,” Tony joked, attempting to blink away the hotness that had pooled in his eyes. Please… No… He shouldn’t fucking _cry_. The last thing he wanted was to break down in front of Steve.

Steve raised a hand to touch him. The Captain’s blue eyes were shining with pain also. Tony took two hasty steps back to keep himself out of Steve’s reach. “Maybe it’s better this way. That we never find out where it could’ve gone—it never would’ve gone far anyway because let’s face it, Cap, despite what you say, I’ll always be your last priority. Barnes is always going to come first in your life, of course, closely followed by the team and then maybe the _greater good_. That leaves me where?” Tony’s lips puckered and he nodded his head once, making a show of being fully convinced of the logic of his conviction. He did not want to hear Steve’s reply. Not one bit.

“So this is better… _so_ much better. All around. Nip whatever this is in the bud,” he said, as dismissively as he could muster. “You got your wish—we have talked about it. There’s nothing further to discuss, and I’m sure you can show yourself out of my building,” he finished curtly.

Tony moved to sit back on his work station to keep tinkering, but Steve made no move to leave. What else did he fucking want?!

“I’ll leave, Tony, don’t worry,” Steve assured, profound sadness unmistakably swimming in his baby blues. “I will leave and never bother you again… _if_ you can look me in the eyes and tell me to my face that you don’t feel anything… _anything_ at all for me. That you don’t care about me as more than just a friend and can never love me. If you can say that, I’ll leave,” Steve challenged, squaring his shoulders as if bracing for a world-shattering impact.

Tony hung his head, momentarily refusing to meet Steve’s eyes. He had to hand it to the Captain; Steve really knew how to sweeten the sorrow and prolong the pain. But it was a mistake challenging Tony the way he just did. Tony was a master at dissociating himself from any emotion. He wasn’t Howard Stark’s son for nothing.

Clenching his jaw, Tony raised his head to meet Steve’s eyes squarely. He wasn’t being melodramatic when he’d said that things were better this way, that they never found out how far they could’ve gone. His heart couldn’t bear it if he would have to endure another rejection. And there was going to be another rejection. There always was. Eventually.

“I don’t. I don’t care about you. Not like that,” Tony said, his voice ringing loud and confident in the expanse of the workshop. He stood up, stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his tattered work jeans and continued, “what happened between us was just heat of the moment. It wouldn’t have worked out because we’re too different. What happened on the island was nothing more than a wonderful dream. But we can’t always be dreaming, can we?”

Tony refused to blink, not even when he saw Steve’s eyes become glassy with unshed tears. He knew he was being cruel and vindictive, hurting Steve just as much as it had hurt when Steve had left him behind—just as much as he was _still_ hurting.

But this was just momentary, a passing fancy—it had to be. Steve would forget about this, especially with Barnes needing his help in recovering. And Tony would forget about it, too. No harm, no foul. Better have their hearts broken now than down the road when they’d already have more to lose.

“Go home, Cap. Go back to your best friend. He’d need you now more than ever. And beside him…beside him is where you belong,” Tony said, getting the last word out. He forced his face to smile wistfully before making his way back to his work station and turning his back towards Steve.

He closed his eyes and started drawing long even breaths to counter the squeezing pain in his insides. He wanted to turn around to see if Steve had left but he couldn’t bear to, in case Steve was still there, and Tony would have to watch surreptitiously as the man he had fallen in love with walked out of his workshop, out of his building and out of his life.

Tony waited until he started to taste blood on his lower lip that he had been chewing for all of five minutes before he turned around and found himself alone in the workshop. Steve had gone.

And it was then that Tony let a whimper break through his clamped lips, and covering his mouth with a hand, hung his head and wept silently. He brought his injured arm on top of the motherboard he was trying to improve and leaned into it, burying his face in the crook of the injured arm in effort to stifle the choking sobs.

This was nothing; this would pass. Like with all the other relationships in his life that had failed and gone down in flames, this was just another thing he would have to overcome. Didn’t mean it was going to hurt less, but he could do it. He had made his choice; it was now time to man up and live with it.

It was funny that while they were in the Isles of Baime, Tony had thought it was going to be difficult to pretend to be in love with each other when they weren’t. Turned out to be a thousand-fold more difficult to pretend _not_ to be in love with each other when they were.

###

Steve was in a numb haze as he practically dragged his legs out of Tony’s workshop and towards the elevator that would take him to the lobby and out of the building.

He had wanted to seize Tony by the shoulders, make the brunette look at him and try to change his mind. Steve could’ve done it, too. Because—damn—he could be stubborn as all-hell. Only he didn’t. He collected himself and left as he had promised Tony he would do.

This was his fault from start to finish after all. He couldn’t blame Tony if the latter didn’t want to have anything to do with him. But no amount of self-blame or mental consolation seemed to work to stop the grief from piercing his heart over and over, making it difficult to breathe as every step took him farther and farther from Tony and any possibility of reconciliation. The promising romance was over before it even began and the sad part was even the friendship, the kindling of which he and Tony were beginning to fan into a healthy flame, seemed to be over as well. Steve’s lost Tony completely. And there was no one else to blame but him.

FRIDAY seemed to be commiserating with him, too, because the elevator doors wordlessly opened to admit him with a ding that carried with it a sense of melancholy and finality. He entered the elevator, went to the very corner just as his legs went limp from under him and he slid to the cold, unforgiving floor. He had never felt this weak and helpless since before the Super Soldier Serum. He didn’t think he’d ever feel like that again; how wrong he was.

Tucking his knees close to his torso, Steve buried his face in his arms and choked down sobs. Steve didn’t know why it was so painful anyway; why was it so painful when he and Tony just had several days together and their potential romance didn’t even get a chance to take off?

Maybe it was the dashed hopes, the regret—that he and Tony really had something beautiful in the short span of time that they had come to know each other, and that they could’ve had something, something _more_ …something they both wanted and deserved but had been denied to both of them.

At least now, Steve had the closure that Natasha talked about. It wasn’t the closure he had hoped, but Steve loved— _love_ Tony enough to respect the genius-billionaire’s decision to reject him. It wasn’t any less excruciating but Steve was ready to live with it. Had he not been living with regret all his life anyway what with his near-miss with Peggy and now with Tony?

Maybe one day when all the pain was gone, Tony could find it in his heart to be Steve’s friend and teammate again.

And maybe one day, too, Steve could find it in _his_ heart to forget Tony and what could’ve been, but judging from how long he had carried a torch for Peggy, he knew it wasn’t going to be soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ___  
> Written to the tune of "Say Something" by A Great Big World ft. Christina Aguilera.
> 
> I know, I know... But can we really blame them and where they're coming from?
> 
> Posting this a day early because we are having a party tomorrow in honor of my Dad's 60th birthday so I will be indisposed ALL day. So I thought I might as well post this today. The last chapter will be coming to you on Tuesday, April 26, the day before Civil War opens here in my country (the very sunny and very HAWT Philippines!)
> 
> Story Issues, typos and inconsistencies? I would love to hear you point them out so don't hesitate to get in touch, give me a heads up!
> 
> **Dedicated to my beloved Papa on this, his 60th birthday. Thank you for being my Number One Fan and believer!!! We love you Always!!!
> 
> Don't skimp on the Comments and Kudos y'all! Emeraldine087 out (for now...)


	18. Do Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys find their way back to where it all started...

Steve hauled himself out of the quinjet last behind Natasha, Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Jim, Vision, Clint and Laura due to a mixture of anxiety and misery.

It was five days before Christmas, and in effort to escape a particularly harsh winter in upstate New York, the team unanimously decided to take a tropical island vacation together. Much to Steve’s chagrin, their support staff booked the 3-day holiday in Tony Stark’s hotel, _The Allegria_ in the Isles of Baime—of all hotels and of all islands in all the world, it had to be here.

Steve was lucky like that.

He had wanted to back out of the vacation, saying that he didn’t really need another one because he had just had one for his birthday barely six months prior, but Natasha and Sam wanted to hear none of it, arguing that Steve could use another break with the way he’d been working himself to the point of exhaustion that he’d have fallen ill with stress and fatigue had he not been imbued with the serum.

The thing was, overworking and keeping himself busy were the only surefire ways that he could get through the day without thinking about Tony too much. Sure, the genius-billionaire was still on Steve’s mind first thing upon waking up, last thing before sleeping and whenever there was something that reminded him of Tony. But Steve knew it would’ve been a lot more incessant if there was no distraction of constant work, training, stake-outs, surveillance and response incidents to occupy himself with.

There was also the matter of overseeing Bucky’s recovery that added to Steve’s distractions which was more good than bad, really. It was another reason that they’d scheduled this group vacation: to celebrate Bucky’s leaps and bounds in terms of his recovery. His doctors were of the opinion that in two months’ time, Bucky could already begin running missions by himself as an active member of The Avengers. Bucky was even looking healthier and less haunted with every passing day.

There were still too many days, though, that Steve found himself just thinking about Tony, wishing he could talk to Tony and drawing Tony, but he was learning—learning to return to the way things used to be. The way things used to be didn’t include occasional coffees with Sharon anymore because Tony had been undeniably right at something: Steve was now ruined for any future dates; Tony had definitely ruined him.

There was one time that he had nearly lost it, though—what precarious hold he had on his composure. It was a random Wednesday in September, and he had just come from a stake-out mission, and he had gone straight to the communal kitchen and ran into Tony who had a mug of coffee in his hand. Apparently, a vital equipment of theirs got broke and Tony just popped over on a spur of the moment drive to give the machine a look-see. And Tony was just getting a mug of his usual poison when Steve had happened upon him.

Stiff—mostly on Tony’s part—greetings were exchanged, and Tony had excused himself hastily, saying he needed to return to fixing the equipment. And Steve never saw him again—for the rest of the day. Or since.

Steve was going to be a hypocrite if he said it didn’t affect him because it did. It hurt to have been so close to Tony, to want to ask him how he was and say so many things, apologize for the nth time, only to stand there wordlessly with his emotions firmly bottled up inside. He wasn’t able to say any of it. The Captain just stood there all tongue-tied and glad, despite his pain, to have seen Tony looking like his usual vibrant self.

It didn’t matter that seeing the genius-billionaire had felt like Thor’s hammer to his face and the Hulk’s elbow to his chest. What mattered was that Tony looked well. Well and truly healed from the wounds of Steve’s blunder.

Now Steve was back in the Isles, where he had spent the best several days of his life with Tony, feeling like he wanted to bawl and crawl back to the quinjet. Away from the sea, the sand, the cliffs, the greenery and the clear late afternoon skies that reminded him of the genius-billionaire.

He had wanted to come back here even before he’d left, but now that he was, it just wasn’t the same. And he knew now that what made the place magical before was Tony. It was Tony who was the real reason he had wanted to come back.

Tony had once promised to Steve that he’d be on the island, too, when the Captain came back, but the latter couldn’t possibly hold Tony to that promise anymore. The genius-billionaire had moved on and he owed Steve nothing. He ought to get that through his thick, stubborn, patriotic, freedom-loving skull if he wanted to enjoy the next three days on this island with the team.

Steve couldn’t bear it if he had to be the poor, unfortunate, forlorn, hung-up-on-unrequited-love moron in front of his friends for one more day. He’d been singing the same bloody tune for almost five months now, and it was driving some of his teammates up the wall. Steve was pretty sure Natasha was about ready to shoot him in the head if he sighed one more time if anyone else mentioned Tony’s name.

So with the most good-natured smile he could muster, Steve dogged the heels of his teammates to the lobby of the hotel to get checked in.

There was actually a bit of a crowd of tourists in the hotel lobby what with Christmas coming up and the people being on holiday break. They were told at the front desk that there was a cruise ship currently docked there, so they were booked solid. But since the team’s reservations had been made early, they were accommodated and even upgraded for their maximum comfort.

Steve’s assigned room was really nice. It was on the opposite wing of the hotel from the room he’d had the first time he was on the island. The view of sparkling blue-green waters and tall cliffs against a backdrop of the sky in explosive sunset colors was breathtaking, too. He put away his duffel and plopped down on the bed. Grabbing the mounted TV’s remote, he decided to see what could be interesting to watch as he waited for the rest of the team to settle in.

Steve realized the big mistake of opening the television when what should he find but a cable re-run of the movie _Titanic_. He closed his eyes in dismay and hurriedly shut the television off. He was in the Isles of Baime, staying in Tony’s hotel with _Titanic_ playing on his television! There was no other explanation but that the universe _hated_ him.

He left his room like death was on his heels after that, preferring to wait for his friends in the lobby, but avoiding having to go into the café where he and Tony had first run into Heather Devigne. So even if he knew he looked pathetic standing awkwardly in the lobby amidst hordes and hordes of tourists, he stayed and didn’t make eye contact with anyone. Though once in a while, he found himself staring at the back of people’s heads or their profiles, wishing that one of them turned out to be Tony.

He never really understood how one could feel so isolated whilst in the midst of a crowd. Oh boy—but he did now…

After some time, the team assembled and they trooped noisily towards an open-air restaurant that came highly recommended by the hotel staff for dinner. The walk to the restaurant took Steve dangerously close to the route he and Tony had taken on their beach stroll after the luau, which sent another wave of memories washing over him: talking about returning to the active roster of The Avengers, catching that couple in a sexually-compromising position by the rocks, talking about Steve being bisexual. Most of all seeing that unguarded smile of contentment on Tony’s face…

Steve would never forget it. He had drawn it on his StarkTab over and over—so many times, he had lost count. In point of fact, his tablet was chock full of drawings of Tony that anyone who happened to find it would think he was harboring some sort of obsession for the genius-billionaire, which to a certain extent, he was.

After five _fucking_ months, Steve Rogers was still stupidly in love with Tony Stark.

They ate boisterously, sharing several bowls of garden salad and pasta, grilled chicken quarters, garlic bread smothered in home-made butter, and milkshakes. They were even served a local dessert of sweetened sticky rice in coconut syrup and molasses when the restaurant owner recognized them to be the world-famous superhero team that they were.

After dinner, they went to a local bar and did karaoke. It was extremely entertaining that even an otherwise reticent Bucky sang a few songs. It was the first time that Steve had seen Bucky truly let his hair down in the presence of the team. Mostly, Bucky just preferred to observe silently whenever he and Steve were in the company of the rest of the team. Everyone was in such good spirits it was damn difficult for Steve not to enjoy himself also.

Until Clint decided to cue a song the opening notes of which were hair-raisingly familiar. It was the song that Tony played on the piano on the night of the auction.

Steve had thought it was just a piano piece, but apparently, he was mistaken—it was a song that one could sing along with; and Steve’s fate being as crappy as it had been since setting foot on the island meant that, of course, Clint would be singing along with the song with much gusto, none the wiser that Steve was silently suffering in their company now.

The night really couldn’t end on a lower note for Steve.

So it transpired that Steve found himself walking along the beach at past ten o’clock after the rest of the team had already turned in for the night. The moon was full and the skies clear of clouds that everything on the coastline was lit with a pearl-white glow. The torches staked on the sand at close intervals all burned bright as well, highlighting the already nicely-lit evening with dancing yellow light.

He clutched at his tablet as his bare feet sank into the soft white sand awash with foam from the waves crashing against the shore. He had decided to take a stroll because he knew that sleep would be elusive to him tonight, too overwhelmed with thoughts of Tony. He wouldn’t have wanted to go to the beach particularly because every inch of it screamed Tony to him, but there really was nowhere else to go. Steve was in a beautiful island paradise but all its beauty was lost on him. He was trapped—trapped in the past, trapped in thoughts of what might have been, what could have been…

If he had only returned to the hotel that day to tell Tony about Bucky, to properly say his goodbyes. If only he had sent some sort of message to Tony about Zemo and HYDRA, asking for his help and explaining his suspicion. If only he had told Tony about the mutagen. If only he had asked Tony to fight with him instead of against him. If. If. If…

If Steve had done all that, he wouldn’t be miserable tonight; he wouldn’t be alone thinking of ifs, and Tony would be taking this stroll with him, holding his hand, joking with him, planning with him about what they would do tomorrow.

Instead, Steve sat down on the next lounger he came upon and fired up his tablet to draw so he could silence his inner demons.

Steve’s digital sketchbook was 95% Tony, and he’s only just realized as he started scrolling through his past projects: Tony’s hands, Tony laughing, Tony sleeping, Tony in the Iron Man suit, Tony playing the piano, Tony sitting on a beachside boulder in his red Prada underwear, Tony, Tony, Tony…

Geez, no wonder Steve couldn’t move on!

Steve started another drawing Project, angry at himself. He drew rough lines and hard strokes with the stylus furiously tapping against the screen, and before he knew it, like a lovesick idiot, he had started drawing Tony again.

Goddammit!

“I never thought I was beautiful enough to be such a constant art subject,” a familiar voice laced with amusement suddenly piped up, shattering Steve’s laser-like focus.

Steve tore his gaze away from his digital sketchbook to find himself staring into the mesmerizingly amber eyes of Tony Stark.

###

Tony thought the deer-in-headlights look was quite becoming of the good Captain. Smirking, he crossed his arms over his chest and squeezed his lower lip between his right forefinger and thumb. All the while, his eyes never left Steve’s face.

“T—Tony? What are you doing here?” Steve asked, stammering. The blonde started looking around, probably wondering where the newcomer had popped up from. Tony noticed that Steve also took that opportunity to try to hide his digital sketchbook away from Tony’s view.

Tony cleared his throat, schooling his face back into a semi-serious expression before replying, “well—I kinda own the place so…” He shrugged, and then added, “also, I got an invitation for Titus Cromley and Heather Devigne’s _wedding_ —of all nasty things to possibly get in the mail, it had to be that…you remember them, right? Silver Fox who wanted to outbid me to date you and Creepy Stalker Girl? Well, they’re getting _married_ —who’d’ve thunk, right?! Don’t ask me what got into them, thinking they can last more than ten minutes married to each other. So they invited _me_ , and it was either I attend that farce of a wedding or I make myself scarce so I don’t have to go. Hence, a remote island getaway seems like a good idea at the mo. And seeing as I happen to own a hotel in a remote island getaway, I think why the hell not?” The genius-billionaire knew he was rambling, but he plowed on anyway. Talking was a defense mechanism.

Instead of looking confused or irritated, the Captain actually seemed pleased at Tony’s long-winded explanation for such a simple question as ‘what are you doing here?’

Taking a seat on the lounger beside the Captain’s, Tony breathed a sigh and turned towards the open sea that was glittering like a carpet of diamonds in the moonlight, leaning back against his arms.

It was great to be back here. It was even more amazing to be back here with Steve. It had been the longest five months of Tony’s life, holed up in the Tower, practically restraining himself day in and day out from wanting to call Steve and making a lame-ass excuse like asking how the facility was doing just to hear the other man’s voice. But he had reminded himself every day that how things were between them was for the best—for _both_ of them. He couldn’t just make a complete about-face on his decision to put a certain distance between himself and Steve; he had his pride after all.

Besides, if Steve could leave him at the drop of a hat once, he could do so again. And then where would Tony be after that? No—Tony needed to be firm in his resolve no matter how much he missed Steve’s reproachful Captain America voice telling him over the phone not to forget to eat and sleep.

Their one-time encounter way back in September when Tony had gone to the Avengers facility to repair some broken equipment was like a test to the strength of that resolve. He had nearly buckled when he saw the kind but sad blue eyes staring back at him. Tony would’ve wanted to think then that those lovelorn, puppy-dog baby blues were because of him—because Steve missed him, too—but he had shaken himself inwardly and regained his hold on that resolve. It was just _guilt_ , Tony had concluded. Steve was just still guilty over what happened between them during the ‘war’ but that was it, and it was nothing more.

He was perfectly content with the status quo until that time earlier this month when he had called Natasha as he was inclined to do after the conflict involving The Accords—well, because it was either call Natasha or call Steve, and Tony wasn’t quite ready to test his resolve that way—and Nat had mentioned about the vacation that the team was going to take.

“Staff’s booked us three days and three nights in your hotel in the Isles of Baime,” Nat had said, deadpan. “We’re _all_ due for a vacation. You should go with us, Tony. Goodness knows what kind of mayhem you’ve been planning holed up in your tower for the past five months.”

“I haven’t been _holed_ up in my tower. I do go out. I, along with SI Legal, regularly meet with the UN Subcommittee to discuss re-wording some of the terms to The Accords. I go to SI meetings now, too,” Tony had retorted, defensively. He had _not_ been holed up in the Tower mourning his near-miss with Steve and constantly missing the big lug—no, just…there were _some_ days… Alright— _most_ days. But not all day, every day!

“Both of you such absolute _idiots_!” Natasha practically growled. “If you change your mind, we’re flying out five days before Christmas, Tony. Think about it. Please. We miss you. And no—don’t make me repeat that last sentence, asshole. Once was bad enough. I have a bad-ass rep to uphold,” Natasha had said, almost fondly before they ended the call.

And Tony had thought about it. For the next two weeks, he had debated with himself, made FRIDAY open a pros-and-cons file just to help him decide, stewed on it whenever he found himself with free time in his hands. Getting the invitation to the Cromley-Devigne nuptials two days prior damn near made up his mind, but it really was not until that morning that he had resolved to go indulge Nat on the invitation, taking out the latest iteration of the suit to fly to the Isles of Baime to join the team.

And see Steve. And talk to Steve. As Tony had been dying to do for the longest time. Because he couldn’t deny it anymore—the absolute _need_ to be with Steve, make Steve laugh, be by Steve’s side in the face of all conflicts and hardships, love Steve and be loved by Steve. He only hoped he wasn’t too late. It was just that the past five months that he had tried to stay away made Tony realize that there were some things worth having your heart on the line, risking it to get broken again and again: he could’ve had that with Steve; he could _still_ have that with Steve if Tony were only brave enough to take the leap.

This was him taking the leap. He, Tony Stark, always got what he wanted, did he not?

“Glad to see you’re enjoying that device,” Tony said, nodding towards the tablet that Steve was still trying—and failing—to hide from him.

No reaction, not even a peep. No matter. Tony couldn’t be more content just sitting out here, enjoying the calm, the view and having the blonde within arm’s reach.

After a considerable period of time, Steve finally broke his silence. “Why are you _really_ here, Tony?”

“I got fed up with Nat’s threats of death; she gets pretty graphic and creative with each passing day. So I thought I’d come here and apologize,” replied Tony with another shrug.

“Apologize for what?”

“For being a total douche and an asshat,” Tony said with self-deprecating snort. “I heard you when you poured out your heart and soul to me that day in the workshop, but then I told you to take a fucking hike. I’m just… I’m sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” Steve nobly reassured, averting his eyes towards the sea also. “It’s hardly your fault that you don’t feel the same way—“

“—about that,” Tony interrupted with a huff, which made Steve look at him again, all puzzled but hopeful. At least, Tony wished that was hope he was seeing in Steve’s eyes in the ghostly light of the full moon. “It’s not that I _don’t_ feel the same way—it’s just… I—I guess I was hurt. I felt abandoned. You just left without even saying goodbye. You should’ve said something about Barnes. And Zemo. But you didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t want to have to put you on the spot. You didn’t know Bucky. You have no obligation to help me help him,” Steve replied, wringing his hands together.

“Then you should have let _me_ make that choice,” Tony said, uncharacteristically gentle. “I’d do anything for you, Steve. You were— _are_ —my friend.”

“Just your friend?”

There was hint of teasing in Steve’s voice, but there was also the unmistakable tremor of apprehension. After all, it wasn’t like this venturing out was new to them. They’d hurt each other before, and they could hardly be faulted for hesitating whether they could try again.

Tony pursed his lips in effort to keep a smile off his face. “Maybe more than just my friend,” he teased back. “Maybe someone a _lot_ more than just my friend. That is… if you don’t mind a do-over.”

“I don’t mind, Tony, if you don’t,” Steve answered rather quickly, but there was still anxiety lacing his tone. “I mean, _I_ was the one who made a monumental mistake, who was the absolute, grade-A _fucktard_ that left you behind…”

The genius-billionaire started in shock at the cussword that left the Captain’s lips, but recovered quickly and, smirking, said, “Trying to make me change my mind about that do-over, are you?”

“No,” Steve murmured, dragging his lounger closer to Tony’s. “But what _I did_ made you think that you were somehow…inadequate, that you were—what—easy to string along and just as easy to leave behind? You’re not, Tony. Don’t ever think that you don’t deserve the best, because you do. You deserve nothing but the best. You are one in a _billion_ , and the person you would choose to give your heart to is one lucky son of a bitch indeed.

“I made a huge mistake; and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that. But don’t doubt that it’s going to be the first of many. Can’t say I’m an old hand at this sort of thing. So if _you_ don’t mind a do-over with a fool like me then I sure as hell don’t mind it, too. I can do a do-over— _over and over_. With you. Because you _are_ worth it,” said Steve, reaching for Tony’s hand and entwining his own fingers with Tony’s.

“It’s not like I’m a master of relationships myself, you know,” Tony fired back with a wink and squeezed Steve’s hand. “I’m so sorry, too. For pushing you away. I was a coward. I didn’t want a repeat of the day after your birthday, so I got it in my head that pushing you away was going to do both of us a favor. But that was just me being selfish and being scared. I didn’t want to have to risk another leap of faith.

“What I’m trying to say is—you are worth it, too, Steve. So I hope you realize what you’re getting yourself into. Because you, sir, are stuck with me,” finished Tony with a lop-sided grin.

The brunette watched as Steve brought the hand clasped within his to his lips and kissed it reverently. “Dance with me,” murmured Steve as he sandwiched Tony’s hand between his.

“What—right here?!”

“Why not?” Steve asked, his blue eyes now twinkling with mirth. “It’s just like that after-party celebration we had on my birthday—the beach, the moon, the company…”

“We’re a tad _overdressed_ , don’t you think?” Tony joked, motioning towards their decent clothing.

Steve shrugged, dismissively, and stood up, leaving his tablet on the lounger. Pulling Tony to his feet, Steve tugged the brunette closer to the surf, and wrapping his powerful arms around Tony’s lithe body, started swaying to the rhythm of the waves crashing against the sand.

“How’s Barnes holding up?” asked Tony. “How’s he enjoying Disney nights?”

“How’d you know about Disney nights?”

“You know me; I have my ways,” replied Tony with an over-the-top wink.

“Bucky’s recovering well. He’ll be getting clearance to run solo missions soon. Disney nights are his favorite, but don’t tell him I said that,” Steve reported, proud of his friend’s progress. “Wouldn’t have been possible without SI’s and your help.”

Tony shrugged dismissively. “It’s nothing. His mission is far from over. Who else is gonna watch your back?”

“I would think that _you_ got my back,” jested Steve, looking at Tony through hooded eyes.

“But I no longer work the field, so—“

“—about that, Tony. Is there really no changing your mind about returning to the active roster of The Avengers?” Steve changed the subject.

Tony’s face morphed into something devilish and naughty. “I dunno,” teased Tony with a roll of his shoulder. “I really think I’m doing a world of good here, sticking to diplomacy and politics and charming the media instead of suiting up and blasting baddies. I can be convinced, though, but they’d have to be _preee—ty_ persuasive to get me to come back.” In case Steve missed the innuendo, Tony licked the corner of his lip with a quick dart of his tongue.

Steve actually bit his own lower lip and blushed at that, which Tony found completely adorable. He was such a hopeless sap!

“I’d like to try to… _convince_ you, if I may…” Steve had the audacity to purr.

“By all means, Commander. By all means,” Tony challenged with a devious smirk.

“So… Heather and Cromley huh?” Steve segued, still making conversation so as to catch up on the five months that they’d lost. “I never would have guessed.”

“If anything, they are sure to drive each other crazy. And I don’t mean that in a positive way,” Tony countered, tittering. “You gotta admit, though, it kinda worked out in the end: Heather and Cromley get each other. And you end up with me,” Tony said, atypically bashful. He ought to really consider sending them a barrel of mead as a wedding present or something because those two undeniably had a hand in bringing Tony and Steve together, loathe as Tony was to admit it.

“True that.”

After a period of calm when all that Tony could hear were the waves rolling against the beach and his own heartbeats, and all he could feel were the wind whipping through their hair and Steve’s warmth against his body, Steve pulled away from Tony and, with his strong arms, spun and dipped Tony with an amused smile that he was trying very hard to quell. Tony positively chortled at Steve’s attempt at being a suave dancer.

They both straightened up, Tony breathless with laughter and Steve humming his contentment. Tony forgot the joke bubbling in his throat, however, when Steve enclosed him in an intense embrace, wrapping his arms around Tony’s trim waist.

“You kept your promise,” Steve whispered against the shell of Tony’s ear, his warmth engulfing the smaller man.

“What promise?” Tony asked coyly, pulling back from the embrace enough to meet Steve’s eyes. He knew, of course, what promise it was that Steve was referring to, but he wanted to hear it from the other man.

“That you’ll be here when I come back,” Steve said, cupping the genius-billionaire’s cheeks between his palms and leaning forward to press his lips against Tony’s in a chaste kiss.

“There’s nothing _I_ want more in this world than to come back here with you. And I always get what I want. Always,” Tony murmured against Steve’s lips, sneaking small kisses every two or three words or so. “What about you? What _do you_ want right now?”

“I want _two_ things,” Steve said, suddenly looking all serious as he bored his eyes into Tony’s.

Tony cocked his head with a raise of an eyebrow, prompting the other man.

“I want _you_. And I want _us_ ,” answered Steve, this time capturing Tony’s mouth in a more intense kiss, full of heat and promise.

And it was like everything was right in the world. Like they had never had a war-igniting conflict. Like the past five months of them having their heads up their asses had never happened. If anything, the kiss this time was sweeter than any of the others they had shared five months previously. Because this time, they knew exactly where they were going with it.

They broke the kiss to catch their breaths and leaned forward with their foreheads touching. “Yeah?” Tony asked, still breathless.

“Yeah,” Steve replied with an intensity to his blue eyes that made the back of Tony’s head tingle.

“I’m pretty sure I can make that happen,” Tony guaranteed with the same smile of naked contentment before leaning in for another kiss.

And why shouldn’t he be contented? He had a promising and bright tomorrow to look forward to with someone he loved and who loved him in return, eccentricities and all.

Now, _this_ would be one hell of a story to regale Bruce with when he came back!

  

 **-0-0- FIN-0-0-**  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ___  
> So this is me done with another Stony story!!! Yay!!! At least this time, it didn't take me two years to finish a writing project!!!! Yay to me!!!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who stuck to this despite getting all our hearts collectively broken with anticipation for the upcoming Captain America: Civil War (which I will be watching tomorrow! Yay again!!!). I will always cherish your kind, encouraging, amazingly intuitive comments and feedback! You make me imagine better, you make me better at expressing what I imagine... Many, many thanks for that!
> 
> For anyone interested in collaborating for a new story or beta-editing any of mine, let me know so we can hook up! 
> 
> Hmmm, what else? I guess I will just see you, guys, again in my next circuit. I don't want writing and posting to be an *annual* thing like what had happened between this story and my previous one (www.stem.org)... I have two/three stories in the pipeline so you might be seeing me sooner than you think; I just hope we're all prepared for that next big adventure...
> 
> If you want to discuss things or just rant, you can find me on Tumblr and Pinterest under the username, emeraldine087
> 
> Thanks again! Maraming Salamat at Mabuhay!


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